Modify access restrictions in response to a possible attack against data stored by a storage system

ABSTRACT

An illustrative method includes a data protection system determining that data stored by a storage system is under a possible attack, detecting a modify request with respect to the storage system while the data stored by the storage system is under the possible attack, determining that the modify request may be related to the possible attack, and performing, in response to determining that the modify request may be related to the possible attack, a remedial action with respect to the modify request.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 16/711,060, filed Dec. 11, 2019, which claims priority under 35U.S.C. § 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/939,518,filed Nov. 22, 2019, which application is incorporated herein byreference in its entirety. This application also claims priority under35 U.S.C. § 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No.62/985,229, filed Mar. 4, 2020, which application is incorporated hereinby reference in its entirety.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings illustrate various embodiments and are a partof the specification. The illustrated embodiments are merely examplesand do not limit the scope of the disclosure. Throughout the drawings,identical or similar reference numbers designate identical or similarelements.

FIG. 1A illustrates a first example system for data storage inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 1B illustrates a second example system for data storage inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 1C illustrates a third example system for data storage inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 1D illustrates a fourth example system for data storage inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 2A is a perspective view of a storage cluster with multiple storagenodes and internal storage coupled to each storage node to providenetwork attached storage, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram showing an interconnect switch couplingmultiple storage nodes in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2C is a multiple level block diagram, showing contents of a storagenode and contents of one of the non-volatile solid state storage unitsin accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2D shows a storage server environment, which uses embodiments ofthe storage nodes and storage units of some previous FIG.s in accordancewith some embodiments.

FIG. 2E is a blade hardware block diagram, showing a control plane,compute and storage planes, and authorities interacting with underlyingphysical resources, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2F depicts elasticity software layers in blades of a storagecluster, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2G depicts authorities and storage resources in blades of a storagecluster, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 3A sets forth a diagram of a storage system that is coupled fordata communications with a cloud services provider in accordance withsome embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3B sets forth a diagram of a storage system in accordance with someembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3C sets forth an example of a cloud-based storage system inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3D illustrates an exemplary computing device that may bespecifically configured to perform one or more of the processesdescribed herein.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary data protection system in accordancewith some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary configuration in which a storage systemprocesses read traffic and write traffic in accordance with someembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 shows an exemplary configuration in which a cloud-basedmonitoring system is communicatively coupled to storage system by way ofa network in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIGS. 7-31 illustrate exemplary methods in accordance with someembodiments of the present disclosure.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Example methods, systems, apparatuses, and products for detecting apossible security threat against a storage system, performing one ormore remedial actions in response to detecting the possible securitythreat, and other embodiments associated with detecting and reacting topossible security threats in accordance with embodiments of the presentdisclosure are described with reference to the accompanying drawings,beginning with FIG. 1A. FIG. 1A illustrates an example system for datastorage, in accordance with some implementations. System 100 (alsoreferred to as “storage system” herein) includes numerous elements forpurposes of illustration rather than limitation. It may be noted thatsystem 100 may include the same, more, or fewer elements configured inthe same or different manner in other implementations.

System 100 includes a number of computing devices 164A-B. Computingdevices (also referred to as “client devices” herein) may be embodied,for example, a server in a data center, a workstation, a personalcomputer, a notebook, or the like. Computing devices 164A-B may becoupled for data communications to one or more storage arrays 102A-Bthrough a storage area network (‘SAN’) 158 or a local area network(‘LAN’) 160.

The SAN 158 may be implemented with a variety of data communicationsfabrics, devices, and protocols. For example, the fabrics for SAN 158may include Fibre Channel, Ethernet, Infiniband, Serial Attached SmallComputer System Interface (‘SAS’), or the like. Data communicationsprotocols for use with SAN 158 may include Advanced TechnologyAttachment (‘ATA’), Fibre Channel Protocol, Small Computer SystemInterface (‘SCSI’), Internet Small Computer System Interface (‘iSCSI’),HyperSCSI, Non-Volatile Memory Express (‘NVMe’) over Fabrics, or thelike. It may be noted that SAN 158 is provided for illustration, ratherthan limitation. Other data communication couplings may be implementedbetween computing devices 164A-B and storage arrays 102A-B.

The LAN 160 may also be implemented with a variety of fabrics, devices,and protocols. For example, the fabrics for LAN 160 may include Ethernet(802.3), wireless (802.11), or the like. Data communication protocolsfor use in LAN 160 may include Transmission Control Protocol (‘TCP’),User Datagram Protocol (‘UDP’), Internet Protocol (‘IP’), HyperTextTransfer Protocol (‘HTTP’), Wireless Access Protocol (‘WAP’), HandheldDevice Transport Protocol (‘HDTP’), Session Initiation Protocol (‘SIP’),Real Time Protocol (‘RTP’), or the like.

Storage arrays 102A-B may provide persistent data storage for thecomputing devices 164A-B. Storage array 102A may be contained in achassis (not shown), and storage array 102B may be contained in anotherchassis (not shown), in implementations. Storage array 102A and 102B mayinclude one or more storage array controllers 110A-D (also referred toas “controller” herein). A storage array controller 110A-D may beembodied as a module of automated computing machinery comprisingcomputer hardware, computer software, or a combination of computerhardware and software. In some implementations, the storage arraycontrollers 110A-D may be configured to carry out various storage tasks.Storage tasks may include writing data received from the computingdevices 164A-B to storage array 102A-B, erasing data from storage array102A-B, retrieving data from storage array 102A-B and providing data tocomputing devices 164A-B, monitoring and reporting of disk utilizationand performance, performing redundancy operations, such as RedundantArray of Independent Drives (‘RAID’) or RAID-like data redundancyoperations, compressing data, encrypting data, and so forth.

Storage array controller 110A-D may be implemented in a variety of ways,including as a Field Programmable Gate Array (‘FPGA’), a ProgrammableLogic Chip (‘PLC’), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (‘ASIC’),System-on-Chip (‘SOC’), or any computing device that includes discretecomponents such as a processing device, central processing unit,computer memory, or various adapters. Storage array controller 110A-Dmay include, for example, a data communications adapter configured tosupport communications via the SAN 158 or LAN 160. In someimplementations, storage array controller 110A-D may be independentlycoupled to the LAN 160. In implementations, storage array controller110A-D may include an I/O controller or the like that couples thestorage array controller 110A-D for data communications, through amidplane (not shown), to a persistent storage resource 170A-B (alsoreferred to as a “storage resource” herein). The persistent storageresource 170A-B main include any number of storage drives 171A-F (alsoreferred to as “storage devices” herein) and any number of non-volatileRandom Access Memory (‘NVRAM’) devices (not shown).

In some implementations, the NVRAM devices of a persistent storageresource 170A-B may be configured to receive, from the storage arraycontroller 110A-D, data to be stored in the storage drives 171A-F. Insome examples, the data may originate from computing devices 164A-B. Insome examples, writing data to the NVRAM device may be carried out morequickly than directly writing data to the storage drive 171A-F. Inimplementations, the storage array controller 110A-D may be configuredto utilize the NVRAM devices as a quickly accessible buffer for datadestined to be written to the storage drives 171A-F. Latency for writerequests using NVRAM devices as a buffer may be improved relative to asystem in which a storage array controller 110A-D writes data directlyto the storage drives 171A-F. In some implementations, the NVRAM devicesmay be implemented with computer memory in the form of high bandwidth,low latency RAM. The NVRAM device is referred to as “non-volatile”because the NVRAM device may receive or include a unique power sourcethat maintains the state of the RAM after main power loss to the NVRAMdevice. Such a power source may be a battery, one or more capacitors, orthe like. In response to a power loss, the NVRAM device may beconfigured to write the contents of the RAM to a persistent storage,such as the storage drives 171A-F.

In implementations, storage drive 171A-F may refer to any deviceconfigured to record data persistently, where “persistently” or“persistent” refers as to a device's ability to maintain recorded dataafter loss of power. In some implementations, storage drive 171A-F maycorrespond to non-disk storage media. For example, the storage drive171A-F may be one or more solid-state drives (‘SSDs’), flash memorybased storage, any type of solid-state non-volatile memory, or any othertype of non-mechanical storage device. In other implementations, storagedrive 171A-F may include mechanical or spinning hard disk, such ashard-disk drives (‘HDD’).

In some implementations, the storage array controllers 110A-D may beconfigured for offloading device management responsibilities fromstorage drive 171A-F in storage array 102A-B. For example, storage arraycontrollers 110A-D may manage control information that may describe thestate of one or more memory blocks in the storage drives 171A-F. Thecontrol information may indicate, for example, that a particular memoryblock has failed and should no longer be written to, that a particularmemory block contains boot code for a storage array controller 110A-D,the number of program-erase (′P/E′) cycles that have been performed on aparticular memory block, the age of data stored in a particular memoryblock, the type of data that is stored in a particular memory block, andso forth. In some implementations, the control information may be storedwith an associated memory block as metadata. In other implementations,the control information for the storage drives 171A-F may be stored inone or more particular memory blocks of the storage drives 171A-F thatare selected by the storage array controller 110A-D. The selected memoryblocks may be tagged with an identifier indicating that the selectedmemory block contains control information. The identifier may beutilized by the storage array controllers 110A-D in conjunction withstorage drives 171A-F to quickly identify the memory blocks that containcontrol information. For example, the storage controllers 110A-D mayissue a command to locate memory blocks that contain controlinformation. It may be noted that control information may be so largethat parts of the control information may be stored in multiplelocations, that the control information may be stored in multiplelocations for purposes of redundancy, for example, or that the controlinformation may otherwise be distributed across multiple memory blocksin the storage drive 171A-F.

In implementations, storage array controllers 110A-D may offload devicemanagement responsibilities from storage drives 171A-F of storage array102A-B by retrieving, from the storage drives 171A-F, controlinformation describing the state of one or more memory blocks in thestorage drives 171A-F. Retrieving the control information from thestorage drives 171A-F may be carried out, for example, by the storagearray controller 110A-D querying the storage drives 171A-F for thelocation of control information for a particular storage drive 171A-F.The storage drives 171A-F may be configured to execute instructions thatenable the storage drive 171A-F to identify the location of the controlinformation. The instructions may be executed by a controller (notshown) associated with or otherwise located on the storage drive 171A-Fand may cause the storage drive 171A-F to scan a portion of each memoryblock to identify the memory blocks that store control information forthe storage drives 171A-F. The storage drives 171A-F may respond bysending a response message to the storage array controller 110A-D thatincludes the location of control information for the storage drive171A-F. Responsive to receiving the response message, storage arraycontrollers 110A-D may issue a request to read data stored at theaddress associated with the location of control information for thestorage drives 171A-F.

In other implementations, the storage array controllers 110A-D mayfurther offload device management responsibilities from storage drives171A-F by performing, in response to receiving the control information,a storage drive management operation. A storage drive managementoperation may include, for example, an operation that is typicallyperformed by the storage drive 171A-F (e.g., the controller (not shown)associated with a particular storage drive 171A-F). A storage drivemanagement operation may include, for example, ensuring that data is notwritten to failed memory blocks within the storage drive 171A-F,ensuring that data is written to memory blocks within the storage drive171A-F in such a way that adequate wear leveling is achieved, and soforth.

In implementations, storage array 102A-B may implement two or morestorage array controllers 110A-D. For example, storage array 102A mayinclude storage array controllers 110A and storage array controllers110B. At a given instance, a single storage array controller 110A-D(e.g., storage array controller 110A) of a storage system 100 may bedesignated with primary status (also referred to as “primary controller”herein), and other storage array controllers 110A-D (e.g., storage arraycontroller 110A) may be designated with secondary status (also referredto as “secondary controller” herein). The primary controller may haveparticular rights, such as permission to alter data in persistentstorage resource 170A-B (e.g., writing data to persistent storageresource 170A-B). At least some of the rights of the primary controllermay supersede the rights of the secondary controller. For instance, thesecondary controller may not have permission to alter data in persistentstorage resource 170A-B when the primary controller has the right. Thestatus of storage array controllers 110A-D may change. For example,storage array controller 110A may be designated with secondary status,and storage array controller 110B may be designated with primary status.

In some implementations, a primary controller, such as storage arraycontroller 110A, may serve as the primary controller for one or morestorage arrays 102A-B, and a second controller, such as storage arraycontroller 110B, may serve as the secondary controller for the one ormore storage arrays 102A-B. For example, storage array controller 110Amay be the primary controller for storage array 102A and storage array102B, and storage array controller 110B may be the secondary controllerfor storage array 102A and 102B. In some implementations, storage arraycontrollers 110C and 110D (also referred to as “storage processingmodules”) may neither have primary or secondary status. Storage arraycontrollers 110C and 110D, implemented as storage processing modules,may act as a communication interface between the primary and secondarycontrollers (e.g., storage array controllers 110A and 110B,respectively) and storage array 102B. For example, storage arraycontroller 110A of storage array 102A may send a write request, via SAN158, to storage array 102B. The write request may be received by bothstorage array controllers 110C and 110D of storage array 102B. Storagearray controllers 110C and 110D facilitate the communication, e.g., sendthe write request to the appropriate storage drive 171A-F. It may benoted that in some implementations storage processing modules may beused to increase the number of storage drives controlled by the primaryand secondary controllers.

In implementations, storage array controllers 110A-D are communicativelycoupled, via a midplane (not shown), to one or more storage drives171A-F and to one or more NVRAM devices (not shown) that are included aspart of a storage array 102A-B. The storage array controllers 110A-D maybe coupled to the midplane via one or more data communication links andthe midplane may be coupled to the storage drives 171A-F and the NVRAMdevices via one or more data communications links. The datacommunications links described herein are collectively illustrated bydata communications links 108A-D and may include a Peripheral ComponentInterconnect Express (‘PCIe’) bus, for example.

FIG. 1B illustrates an example system for data storage, in accordancewith some implementations. Storage array controller 101 illustrated inFIG. 1B may similar to the storage array controllers 110A-D describedwith respect to FIG. 1A. In one example, storage array controller 101may be similar to storage array controller 110A or storage arraycontroller 110B. Storage array controller 101 includes numerous elementsfor purposes of illustration rather than limitation. It may be notedthat storage array controller 101 may include the same, more, or fewerelements configured in the same or different manner in otherimplementations. It may be noted that elements of FIG. 1A may beincluded below to help illustrate features of storage array controller101.

Storage array controller 101 may include one or more processing devices104 and random access memory (‘RAM’) 111. Processing device 104 (orcontroller 101) represents one or more general-purpose processingdevices such as a microprocessor, central processing unit, or the like.More particularly, the processing device 104 (or controller 101) may bea complex instruction set computing (‘CISC’) microprocessor, reducedinstruction set computing (‘RISC’) microprocessor, very long instructionword (‘VLIW’) microprocessor, or a processor implementing otherinstruction sets or processors implementing a combination of instructionsets. The processing device 104 (or controller 101) may also be one ormore special-purpose processing devices such as an ASIC, an FPGA, adigital signal processor (‘DSP’), network processor, or the like.

The processing device 104 may be connected to the RAM 111 via a datacommunications link 106, which may be embodied as a high speed memorybus such as a Double-Data Rate 4 (‘DDR4’) bus. Stored in RAM 111 is anoperating system 112. In some implementations, instructions 113 arestored in RAM 111. Instructions 113 may include computer programinstructions for performing operations in in a direct-mapped flashstorage system. In one embodiment, a direct-mapped flash storage systemis one that that addresses data blocks within flash drives directly andwithout an address translation performed by the storage controllers ofthe flash drives.

In implementations, storage array controller 101 includes one or morehost bus adapters 103A-C that are coupled to the processing device 104via a data communications link 105A-C. In implementations, host busadapters 103A-C may be computer hardware that connects a host system(e.g., the storage array controller) to other network and storagearrays. In some examples, host bus adapters 103A-C may be a FibreChannel adapter that enables the storage array controller 101 to connectto a SAN, an Ethernet adapter that enables the storage array controller101 to connect to a LAN, or the like. Host bus adapters 103A-C may becoupled to the processing device 104 via a data communications link105A-C such as, for example, a PCIe bus.

In implementations, storage array controller 101 may include a host busadapter 114 that is coupled to an expander 115. The expander 115 may beused to attach a host system to a larger number of storage drives. Theexpander 115 may, for example, be a SAS expander utilized to enable thehost bus adapter 114 to attach to storage drives in an implementationwhere the host bus adapter 114 is embodied as a SAS controller.

In implementations, storage array controller 101 may include a switch116 coupled to the processing device 104 via a data communications link109. The switch 116 may be a computer hardware device that can createmultiple endpoints out of a single endpoint, thereby enabling multipledevices to share a single endpoint. The switch 116 may, for example, bea PCIe switch that is coupled to a PCIe bus (e.g., data communicationslink 109) and presents multiple PCIe connection points to the midplane.

In implementations, storage array controller 101 includes a datacommunications link 107 for coupling the storage array controller 101 toother storage array controllers. In some examples, data communicationslink 107 may be a QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) interconnect.

A traditional storage system that uses traditional flash drives mayimplement a process across the flash drives that are part of thetraditional storage system. For example, a higher level process of thestorage system may initiate and control a process across the flashdrives. However, a flash drive of the traditional storage system mayinclude its own storage controller that also performs the process. Thus,for the traditional storage system, a higher level process (e.g.,initiated by the storage system) and a lower level process (e.g.,initiated by a storage controller of the storage system) may both beperformed.

To resolve various deficiencies of a traditional storage system,operations may be performed by higher level processes and not by thelower level processes. For example, the flash storage system may includeflash drives that do not include storage controllers that provide theprocess. Thus, the operating system of the flash storage system itselfmay initiate and control the process. This may be accomplished by adirect-mapped flash storage system that addresses data blocks within theflash drives directly and without an address translation performed bythe storage controllers of the flash drives.

The operating system of the flash storage system may identify andmaintain a list of allocation units across multiple flash drives of theflash storage system. The allocation units may be entire erase blocks ormultiple erase blocks. The operating system may maintain a map oraddress range that directly maps addresses to erase blocks of the flashdrives of the flash storage system.

Direct mapping to the erase blocks of the flash drives may be used torewrite data and erase data. For example, the operations may beperformed on one or more allocation units that include a first data anda second data where the first data is to be retained and the second datais no longer being used by the flash storage system. The operatingsystem may initiate the process to write the first data to new locationswithin other allocation units and erasing the second data and markingthe allocation units as being available for use for subsequent data.Thus, the process may only be performed by the higher level operatingsystem of the flash storage system without an additional lower levelprocess being performed by controllers of the flash drives.

Advantages of the process being performed only by the operating systemof the flash storage system include increased reliability of the flashdrives of the flash storage system as unnecessary or redundant writeoperations are not being performed during the process. One possiblepoint of novelty here is the concept of initiating and controlling theprocess at the operating system of the flash storage system. Inaddition, the process can be controlled by the operating system acrossmultiple flash drives. This is contrast to the process being performedby a storage controller of a flash drive.

A storage system can consist of two storage array controllers that sharea set of drives for failover purposes, or it could consist of a singlestorage array controller that provides a storage service that utilizesmultiple drives, or it could consist of a distributed network of storagearray controllers each with some number of drives or some amount ofFlash storage where the storage array controllers in the networkcollaborate to provide a complete storage service and collaborate onvarious aspects of a storage service including storage allocation andgarbage collection.

FIG. 1C illustrates a third example system 117 for data storage inaccordance with some implementations. System 117 (also referred to as“storage system” herein) includes numerous elements for purposes ofillustration rather than limitation. It may be noted that system 117 mayinclude the same, more, or fewer elements configured in the same ordifferent manner in other implementations.

In one embodiment, system 117 includes a dual Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (‘PCI’) flash storage device 118 with separatelyaddressable fast write storage. System 117 may include a storagecontroller 119. In one embodiment, storage controller 119A-D may be aCPU, ASIC, FPGA, or any other circuitry that may implement controlstructures necessary according to the present disclosure. In oneembodiment, system 117 includes flash memory devices (e.g., includingflash memory devices 120 a-n), operatively coupled to various channelsof the storage device controller 119. Flash memory devices 120 a-n, maybe presented to the controller 119A-D as an addressable collection ofFlash pages, erase blocks, and/or control elements sufficient to allowthe storage device controller 119A-D to program and retrieve variousaspects of the Flash. In one embodiment, storage device controller119A-D may perform operations on flash memory devices 120 a-n includingstoring and retrieving data content of pages, arranging and erasing anyblocks, tracking statistics related to the use and reuse of Flash memorypages, erase blocks, and cells, tracking and predicting error codes andfaults within the Flash memory, controlling voltage levels associatedwith programming and retrieving contents of Flash cells, etc.

In one embodiment, system 117 may include RAM 121 to store separatelyaddressable fast-write data. In one embodiment, RAM 121 may be one ormore separate discrete devices. In another embodiment, RAM 121 may beintegrated into storage device controller 119A-D or multiple storagedevice controllers. The RAM 121 may be utilized for other purposes aswell, such as temporary program memory for a processing device (e.g., aCPU) in the storage device controller 119.

In one embodiment, system 117 may include a stored energy device 122,such as a rechargeable battery or a capacitor. Stored energy device 122may store energy sufficient to power the storage device controller 119,some amount of the RAM (e.g., RAM 121), and some amount of Flash memory(e.g., Flash memory 120 a-120 n) for sufficient time to write thecontents of RAM to Flash memory. In one embodiment, storage devicecontroller 119A-D may write the contents of RAM to Flash Memory if thestorage device controller detects loss of external power.

In one embodiment, system 117 includes two data communications links 123a, 123 b. In one embodiment, data communications links 123 a, 123 b maybe PCI interfaces. In another embodiment, data communications links 123a, 123 b may be based on other communications standards (e.g.,HyperTransport, InfiniBand, etc.). Data communications links 123 a, 123b may be based on non-volatile memory express (‘NVMe’) or NVMe overfabrics (‘NVMf’) specifications that allow external connection to thestorage device controller 119A-D from other components in the storagesystem 117. It should be noted that data communications links may beinterchangeably referred to herein as PCI buses for convenience.

System 117 may also include an external power source (not shown), whichmay be provided over one or both data communications links 123 a, 123 b,or which may be provided separately. An alternative embodiment includesa separate Flash memory (not shown) dedicated for use in storing thecontent of RAM 121. The storage device controller 119A-D may present alogical device over a PCI bus which may include an addressablefast-write logical device, or a distinct part of the logical addressspace of the storage device 118, which may be presented as PCI memory oras persistent storage. In one embodiment, operations to store into thedevice are directed into the RAM 121. On power failure, the storagedevice controller 119A-D may write stored content associated with theaddressable fast-write logical storage to Flash memory (e.g., Flashmemory 120 a-n) for long-term persistent storage.

In one embodiment, the logical device may include some presentation ofsome or all of the content of the Flash memory devices 120 a-n, wherethat presentation allows a storage system including a storage device 118(e.g., storage system 117) to directly address Flash memory pages anddirectly reprogram erase blocks from storage system components that areexternal to the storage device through the PCI bus. The presentation mayalso allow one or more of the external components to control andretrieve other aspects of the Flash memory including some or all of:tracking statistics related to use and reuse of Flash memory pages,erase blocks, and cells across all the Flash memory devices; trackingand predicting error codes and faults within and across the Flash memorydevices; controlling voltage levels associated with programming andretrieving contents of Flash cells; etc.

In one embodiment, the stored energy device 122 may be sufficient toensure completion of in-progress operations to the Flash memory devices120 a-120 n stored energy device 122 may power storage device controller119A-D and associated Flash memory devices (e.g., 120 a-n) for thoseoperations, as well as for the storing of fast-write RAM to Flashmemory. Stored energy device 122 may be used to store accumulatedstatistics and other parameters kept and tracked by the Flash memorydevices 120 a-n and/or the storage device controller 119. Separatecapacitors or stored energy devices (such as smaller capacitors near orembedded within the Flash memory devices themselves) may be used forsome or all of the operations described herein.

Various schemes may be used to track and optimize the life span of thestored energy component, such as adjusting voltage levels over time,partially discharging the storage energy device 122 to measurecorresponding discharge characteristics, etc. If the available energydecreases over time, the effective available capacity of the addressablefast-write storage may be decreased to ensure that it can be writtensafely based on the currently available stored energy.

FIG. 1D illustrates a third example system 124 for data storage inaccordance with some implementations. In one embodiment, system 124includes storage controllers 125 a, 125 b. In one embodiment, storagecontrollers 125 a, 125 b are operatively coupled to Dual PCI storagedevices 119 a, 119 b and 119 c, 119 d, respectively. Storage controllers125 a, 125 b may be operatively coupled (e.g., via a storage network130) to some number of host computers 127 a-n.

In one embodiment, two storage controllers (e.g., 125 a and 125 b)provide storage services, such as a SCS) block storage array, a fileserver, an object server, a database or data analytics service, etc. Thestorage controllers 125 a, 125 b may provide services through somenumber of network interfaces (e.g., 126 a-d) to host computers 127 a-noutside of the storage system 124. Storage controllers 125 a, 125 b mayprovide integrated services or an application entirely within thestorage system 124, forming a converged storage and compute system. Thestorage controllers 125 a, 125 b may utilize the fast write memorywithin or across storage devices 119 a-d to journal in progressoperations to ensure the operations are not lost on a power failure,storage controller removal, storage controller or storage systemshutdown, or some fault of one or more software or hardware componentswithin the storage system 124.

In one embodiment, controllers 125 a, 125 b operate as PCI masters toone or the other PCI buses 128 a, 128 b. In another embodiment, 128 aand 128 b may be based on other communications standards (e.g.,HyperTransport, InfiniBand, etc.). Other storage system embodiments mayoperate storage controllers 125 a, 125 b as multi-masters for both PCIbuses 128 a, 128 b. Alternately, a PCI/NVMe/NVMf switchinginfrastructure or fabric may connect multiple storage controllers. Somestorage system embodiments may allow storage devices to communicate witheach other directly rather than communicating only with storagecontrollers. In one embodiment, a storage device controller 119 a may beoperable under direction from a storage controller 125 a to synthesizeand transfer data to be stored into Flash memory devices from data thathas been stored in RAM (e.g., RAM 121 of FIG. 1C). For example, arecalculated version of RAM content may be transferred after a storagecontroller has determined that an operation has fully committed acrossthe storage system, or when fast-write memory on the device has reacheda certain used capacity, or after a certain amount of time, to ensureimprove safety of the data or to release addressable fast-write capacityfor reuse. This mechanism may be used, for example, to avoid a secondtransfer over a bus (e.g., 128 a, 128 b) from the storage controllers125 a, 125 b. In one embodiment, a recalculation may include compressingdata, attaching indexing or other metadata, combining multiple datasegments together, performing erasure code calculations, etc.

In one embodiment, under direction from a storage controller 125 a, 125b, a storage device controller 119 a, 119 b may be operable to calculateand transfer data to other storage devices from data stored in RAM(e.g., RAM 121 of FIG. 1C) without involvement of the storagecontrollers 125 a, 125 b. This operation may be used to mirror datastored in one controller 125 a to another controller 125 b, or it couldbe used to offload compression, data aggregation, and/or erasure codingcalculations and transfers to storage devices to reduce load on storagecontrollers or the storage controller interface 129 a, 129 b to the PCIbus 128 a, 128 b.

A storage device controller 119A-D may include mechanisms forimplementing high availability primitives for use by other parts of astorage system external to the Dual PCI storage device 118. For example,reservation or exclusion primitives may be provided so that, in astorage system with two storage controllers providing a highly availablestorage service, one storage controller may prevent the other storagecontroller from accessing or continuing to access the storage device.This could be used, for example, in cases where one controller detectsthat the other controller is not functioning properly or where theinterconnect between the two storage controllers may itself not befunctioning properly.

In one embodiment, a storage system for use with Dual PCI direct mappedstorage devices with separately addressable fast write storage includessystems that manage erase blocks or groups of erase blocks as allocationunits for storing data on behalf of the storage service, or for storingmetadata (e.g., indexes, logs, etc.) associated with the storageservice, or for proper management of the storage system itself. Flashpages, which may be a few kilobytes in size, may be written as dataarrives or as the storage system is to persist data for long intervalsof time (e.g., above a defined threshold of time). To commit data morequickly, or to reduce the number of writes to the Flash memory devices,the storage controllers may first write data into the separatelyaddressable fast write storage on one more storage devices.

In one embodiment, the storage controllers 125 a, 125 b may initiate theuse of erase blocks within and across storage devices (e.g., 118) inaccordance with an age and expected remaining lifespan of the storagedevices, or based on other statistics. The storage controllers 125 a,125 b may initiate garbage collection and data migration data betweenstorage devices in accordance with pages that are no longer needed aswell as to manage Flash page and erase block lifespans and to manageoverall system performance.

In one embodiment, the storage system 124 may utilize mirroring and/orerasure coding schemes as part of storing data into addressable fastwrite storage and/or as part of writing data into allocation unitsassociated with erase blocks. Erasure codes may be used across storagedevices, as well as within erase blocks or allocation units, or withinand across Flash memory devices on a single storage device, to provideredundancy against single or multiple storage device failures or toprotect against internal corruptions of Flash memory pages resultingfrom Flash memory operations or from degradation of Flash memory cells.Mirroring and erasure coding at various levels may be used to recoverfrom multiple types of failures that occur separately or in combination.

The embodiments depicted with reference to FIGS. 2A-G illustrate astorage cluster that stores user data, such as user data originatingfrom one or more user or client systems or other sources external to thestorage cluster. The storage cluster distributes user data acrossstorage nodes housed within a chassis, or across multiple chassis, usingerasure coding and redundant copies of metadata. Erasure coding refersto a method of data protection or reconstruction in which data is storedacross a set of different locations, such as disks, storage nodes orgeographic locations. Flash memory is one type of solid-state memorythat may be integrated with the embodiments, although the embodimentsmay be extended to other types of solid-state memory or other storagemedium, including non-solid state memory. Control of storage locationsand workloads are distributed across the storage locations in aclustered peer-to-peer system. Tasks such as mediating communicationsbetween the various storage nodes, detecting when a storage node hasbecome unavailable, and balancing I/Os (inputs and outputs) across thevarious storage nodes, are all handled on a distributed basis. Data islaid out or distributed across multiple storage nodes in data fragmentsor stripes that support data recovery in some embodiments. Ownership ofdata can be reassigned within a cluster, independent of input and outputpatterns. This architecture described in more detail below allows astorage node in the cluster to fail, with the system remainingoperational, since the data can be reconstructed from other storagenodes and thus remain available for input and output operations. Invarious embodiments, a storage node may be referred to as a clusternode, a blade, or a server.

The storage cluster may be contained within a chassis, i.e., anenclosure housing one or more storage nodes. A mechanism to providepower to each storage node, such as a power distribution bus, and acommunication mechanism, such as a communication bus that enablescommunication between the storage nodes are included within the chassis.The storage cluster can run as an independent system in one locationaccording to some embodiments. In one embodiment, a chassis contains atleast two instances of both the power distribution and the communicationbus which may be enabled or disabled independently. The internalcommunication bus may be an Ethernet bus, however, other technologiessuch as PCIe, InfiniBand, and others, are equally suitable. The chassisprovides a port for an external communication bus for enablingcommunication between multiple chassis, directly or through a switch,and with client systems. The external communication may use a technologysuch as Ethernet, InfiniBand, Fibre Channel, etc. In some embodiments,the external communication bus uses different communication bustechnologies for inter-chassis and client communication. If a switch isdeployed within or between chassis, the switch may act as a translationbetween multiple protocols or technologies. When multiple chassis areconnected to define a storage cluster, the storage cluster may beaccessed by a client using either proprietary interfaces or standardinterfaces such as network file system (‘NFS’), common internet filesystem (‘CIFS’), small computer system interface (‘SCSI’) or hypertexttransfer protocol (‘HTTP’). Translation from the client protocol mayoccur at the switch, chassis external communication bus or within eachstorage node. In some embodiments, multiple chassis may be coupled orconnected to each other through an aggregator switch. A portion and/orall of the coupled or connected chassis may be designated as a storagecluster. As discussed above, each chassis can have multiple blades, eachblade has a media access control (‘MAC’) address, but the storagecluster is presented to an external network as having a single clusterIP address and a single MAC address in some embodiments.

Each storage node may be one or more storage servers and each storageserver is connected to one or more non-volatile solid state memoryunits, which may be referred to as storage units or storage devices. Oneembodiment includes a single storage server in each storage node andbetween one to eight non-volatile solid state memory units, however thisone example is not meant to be limiting. The storage server may includea processor, DRAM and interfaces for the internal communication bus andpower distribution for each of the power buses. Inside the storage node,the interfaces and storage unit share a communication bus, e.g., PCIExpress, in some embodiments. The non-volatile solid state memory unitsmay directly access the internal communication bus interface through astorage node communication bus, or request the storage node to accessthe bus interface. The non-volatile solid state memory unit contains anembedded CPU, solid state storage controller, and a quantity of solidstate mass storage, e.g., between 2-32 terabytes (‘TB’) in someembodiments. An embedded volatile storage medium, such as DRAM, and anenergy reserve apparatus are included in the non-volatile solid statememory unit. In some embodiments, the energy reserve apparatus is acapacitor, super-capacitor, or battery that enables transferring asubset of DRAM contents to a stable storage medium in the case of powerloss. In some embodiments, the non-volatile solid state memory unit isconstructed with a storage class memory, such as phase change ormagnetoresistive random access memory (‘MRAM’) that substitutes for DRAMand enables a reduced power hold-up apparatus.

One of many features of the storage nodes and non-volatile solid statestorage is the ability to proactively rebuild data in a storage cluster.The storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storage can determinewhen a storage node or non-volatile solid state storage in the storagecluster is unreachable, independent of whether there is an attempt toread data involving that storage node or non-volatile solid statestorage. The storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storage thencooperate to recover and rebuild the data in at least partially newlocations. This constitutes a proactive rebuild, in that the systemrebuilds data without waiting until the data is needed for a read accessinitiated from a client system employing the storage cluster. These andfurther details of the storage memory and operation thereof arediscussed below.

FIG. 2A is a perspective view of a storage cluster 161, with multiplestorage nodes 150 and internal solid-state memory coupled to eachstorage node to provide network attached storage or storage areanetwork, in accordance with some embodiments. A network attachedstorage, storage area network, or a storage cluster, or other storagememory, could include one or more storage clusters 161, each having oneor more storage nodes 150, in a flexible and reconfigurable arrangementof both the physical components and the amount of storage memoryprovided thereby. The storage cluster 161 is designed to fit in a rack,and one or more racks can be set up and populated as desired for thestorage memory. The storage cluster 161 has a chassis 138 havingmultiple slots 142. It should be appreciated that chassis 138 may bereferred to as a housing, enclosure, or rack unit. In one embodiment,the chassis 138 has fourteen slots 142, although other numbers of slotsare readily devised. For example, some embodiments have four slots,eight slots, sixteen slots, thirty-two slots, or other suitable numberof slots. Each slot 142 can accommodate one storage node 150 in someembodiments. Chassis 138 includes flaps 148 that can be utilized tomount the chassis 138 on a rack. Fans 144 provide air circulation forcooling of the storage nodes 150 and components thereof, although othercooling components could be used, or an embodiment could be devisedwithout cooling components. A switch fabric 146 couples storage nodes150 within chassis 138 together and to a network for communication tothe memory. In an embodiment depicted in herein, the slots 142 to theleft of the switch fabric 146 and fans 144 are shown occupied by storagenodes 150, while the slots 142 to the right of the switch fabric 146 andfans 144 are empty and available for insertion of storage node 150 forillustrative purposes. This configuration is one example, and one ormore storage nodes 150 could occupy the slots 142 in various furtherarrangements. The storage node arrangements need not be sequential oradjacent in some embodiments. Storage nodes 150 are hot pluggable,meaning that a storage node 150 can be inserted into a slot 142 in thechassis 138, or removed from a slot 142, without stopping or poweringdown the system. Upon insertion or removal of storage node 150 from slot142, the system automatically reconfigures in order to recognize andadapt to the change. Reconfiguration, in some embodiments, includesrestoring redundancy and/or rebalancing data or load.

Each storage node 150 can have multiple components. In the embodimentshown here, the storage node 150 includes a printed circuit board 159populated by a CPU 156, i.e., processor, a memory 154 coupled to the CPU156, and a non-volatile solid state storage 152 coupled to the CPU 156,although other mountings and/or components could be used in furtherembodiments. The memory 154 has instructions which are executed by theCPU 156 and/or data operated on by the CPU 156. As further explainedbelow, the non-volatile solid state storage 152 includes flash or, infurther embodiments, other types of solid-state memory.

Referring to FIG. 2A, storage cluster 161 is scalable, meaning thatstorage capacity with non-uniform storage sizes is readily added, asdescribed above. One or more storage nodes 150 can be plugged into orremoved from each chassis and the storage cluster self-configures insome embodiments. Plug-in storage nodes 150, whether installed in achassis as delivered or later added, can have different sizes. Forexample, in one embodiment a storage node 150 can have any multiple of 4TB, e.g., 8 TB, 12 TB, 16 TB, 32 TB, etc. In further embodiments, astorage node 150 could have any multiple of other storage amounts orcapacities. Storage capacity of each storage node 150 is broadcast, andinfluences decisions of how to stripe the data. For maximum storageefficiency, an embodiment can self-configure as wide as possible in thestripe, subject to a predetermined requirement of continued operationwith loss of up to one, or up to two, non-volatile solid state storageunits 152 or storage nodes 150 within the chassis.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram showing a communications interconnect 173 andpower distribution bus 172 coupling multiple storage nodes 150.Referring back to FIG. 2A, the communications interconnect 173 can beincluded in or implemented with the switch fabric 146 in someembodiments. Where multiple storage clusters 161 occupy a rack, thecommunications interconnect 173 can be included in or implemented with atop of rack switch, in some embodiments. As illustrated in FIG. 2B,storage cluster 161 is enclosed within a single chassis 138. Externalport 176 is coupled to storage nodes 150 through communicationsinterconnect 173, while external port 174 is coupled directly to astorage node. External power port 178 is coupled to power distributionbus 172. Storage nodes 150 may include varying amounts and differingcapacities of non-volatile solid state storage 152 as described withreference to FIG. 2A. In addition, one or more storage nodes 150 may bea compute only storage node as illustrated in FIG. 2B. Authorities 168are implemented on the non-volatile solid state storages 152, forexample as lists or other data structures stored in memory. In someembodiments the authorities are stored within the non-volatile solidstate storage 152 and supported by software executing on a controller orother processor of the non-volatile solid state storage 152. In afurther embodiment, authorities 168 are implemented on the storage nodes150, for example as lists or other data structures stored in the memory154 and supported by software executing on the CPU 156 of the storagenode 150. Authorities 168 control how and where data is stored in thenon-volatile solid state storages 152 in some embodiments. This controlassists in determining which type of erasure coding scheme is applied tothe data, and which storage nodes 150 have which portions of the data.Each authority 168 may be assigned to a non-volatile solid state storage152. Each authority may control a range of inode numbers, segmentnumbers, or other data identifiers which are assigned to data by a filesystem, by the storage nodes 150, or by the non-volatile solid statestorage 152, in various embodiments.

Every piece of data, and every piece of metadata, has redundancy in thesystem in some embodiments. In addition, every piece of data and everypiece of metadata has an owner, which may be referred to as anauthority. If that authority is unreachable, for example through failureof a storage node, there is a plan of succession for how to find thatdata or that metadata. In various embodiments, there are redundantcopies of authorities 168. Authorities 168 have a relationship tostorage nodes 150 and non-volatile solid state storage 152 in someembodiments. Each authority 168, covering a range of data segmentnumbers or other identifiers of the data, may be assigned to a specificnon-volatile solid state storage 152. In some embodiments theauthorities 168 for all of such ranges are distributed over thenon-volatile solid state storages 152 of a storage cluster. Each storagenode 150 has a network port that provides access to the non-volatilesolid state storage(s) 152 of that storage node 150. Data can be storedin a segment, which is associated with a segment number and that segmentnumber is an indirection for a configuration of a RAID (redundant arrayof independent disks) stripe in some embodiments. The assignment and useof the authorities 168 thus establishes an indirection to data.Indirection may be referred to as the ability to reference dataindirectly, in this case via an authority 168, in accordance with someembodiments. A segment identifies a set of non-volatile solid statestorage 152 and a local identifier into the set of non-volatile solidstate storage 152 that may contain data. In some embodiments, the localidentifier is an offset into the device and may be reused sequentiallyby multiple segments. In other embodiments the local identifier isunique for a specific segment and never reused. The offsets in thenon-volatile solid state storage 152 are applied to locating data forwriting to or reading from the non-volatile solid state storage 152 (inthe form of a RAID stripe). Data is striped across multiple units ofnon-volatile solid state storage 152, which may include or be differentfrom the non-volatile solid state storage 152 having the authority 168for a particular data segment.

If there is a change in where a particular segment of data is located,e.g., during a data move or a data reconstruction, the authority 168 forthat data segment should be consulted, at that non-volatile solid statestorage 152 or storage node 150 having that authority 168. In order tolocate a particular piece of data, embodiments calculate a hash valuefor a data segment or apply an inode number or a data segment number.The output of this operation points to a non-volatile solid statestorage 152 having the authority 168 for that particular piece of data.In some embodiments there are two stages to this operation. The firststage maps an entity identifier (ID), e.g., a segment number, inodenumber, or directory number to an authority identifier. This mapping mayinclude a calculation such as a hash or a bit mask. The second stage ismapping the authority identifier to a particular non-volatile solidstate storage 152, which may be done through an explicit mapping. Theoperation is repeatable, so that when the calculation is performed, theresult of the calculation repeatably and reliably points to a particularnon-volatile solid state storage 152 having that authority 168. Theoperation may include the set of reachable storage nodes as input. Ifthe set of reachable non-volatile solid state storage units changes theoptimal set changes. In some embodiments, the persisted value is thecurrent assignment (which is always true) and the calculated value isthe target assignment the cluster will attempt to reconfigure towards.This calculation may be used to determine the optimal non-volatile solidstate storage 152 for an authority in the presence of a set ofnon-volatile solid state storage 152 that are reachable and constitutethe same cluster. The calculation also determines an ordered set of peernon-volatile solid state storage 152 that will also record the authorityto non-volatile solid state storage mapping so that the authority may bedetermined even if the assigned non-volatile solid state storage isunreachable. A duplicate or substitute authority 168 may be consulted ifa specific authority 168 is unavailable in some embodiments.

With reference to FIGS. 2A and 2B, two of the many tasks of the CPU 156on a storage node 150 are to break up write data, and reassemble readdata. When the system has determined that data is to be written, theauthority 168 for that data is located as above. When the segment ID fordata is already determined the request to write is forwarded to thenon-volatile solid state storage 152 currently determined to be the hostof the authority 168 determined from the segment. The host CPU 156 ofthe storage node 150, on which the non-volatile solid state storage 152and corresponding authority 168 reside, then breaks up or shards thedata and transmits the data out to various non-volatile solid statestorage 152. The transmitted data is written as a data stripe inaccordance with an erasure coding scheme. In some embodiments, data isrequested to be pulled, and in other embodiments, data is pushed. Inreverse, when data is read, the authority 168 for the segment IDcontaining the data is located as described above. The host CPU 156 ofthe storage node 150 on which the non-volatile solid state storage 152and corresponding authority 168 reside requests the data from thenon-volatile solid state storage and corresponding storage nodes pointedto by the authority. In some embodiments the data is read from flashstorage as a data stripe. The host CPU 156 of storage node 150 thenreassembles the read data, correcting any errors (if present) accordingto the appropriate erasure coding scheme, and forwards the reassembleddata to the network. In further embodiments, some or all of these taskscan be handled in the non-volatile solid state storage 152. In someembodiments, the segment host requests the data be sent to storage node150 by requesting pages from storage and then sending the data to thestorage node making the original request.

In some systems, for example in UNIX-style file systems, data is handledwith an index node or inode, which specifies a data structure thatrepresents an object in a file system. The object could be a file or adirectory, for example. Metadata may accompany the object, as attributessuch as permission data and a creation timestamp, among otherattributes. A segment number could be assigned to all or a portion ofsuch an object in a file system. In other systems, data segments arehandled with a segment number assigned elsewhere. For purposes ofdiscussion, the unit of distribution is an entity, and an entity can bea file, a directory or a segment. That is, entities are units of data ormetadata stored by a storage system. Entities are grouped into setscalled authorities. Each authority has an authority owner, which is astorage node that has the exclusive right to update the entities in theauthority. In other words, a storage node contains the authority, andthat the authority, in turn, contains entities.

A segment is a logical container of data in accordance with someembodiments. A segment is an address space between medium address spaceand physical flash locations, i.e., the data segment number, are in thisaddress space. Segments may also contain meta-data, which enable dataredundancy to be restored (rewritten to different flash locations ordevices) without the involvement of higher level software. In oneembodiment, an internal format of a segment contains client data andmedium mappings to determine the position of that data. Each datasegment is protected, e.g., from memory and other failures, by breakingthe segment into a number of data and parity shards, where applicable.The data and parity shards are distributed, i.e., striped, acrossnon-volatile solid state storage 152 coupled to the host CPUs 156 (SeeFIGS. 2E and 2G) in accordance with an erasure coding scheme. Usage ofthe term segments refers to the container and its place in the addressspace of segments in some embodiments. Usage of the term stripe refersto the same set of shards as a segment and includes how the shards aredistributed along with redundancy or parity information in accordancewith some embodiments.

A series of address-space transformations takes place across an entirestorage system. At the top are the directory entries (file names) whichlink to an inode. Inodes point into medium address space, where data islogically stored. Medium addresses may be mapped through a series ofindirect mediums to spread the load of large files, or implement dataservices like deduplication or snapshots. Medium addresses may be mappedthrough a series of indirect mediums to spread the load of large files,or implement data services like deduplication or snapshots. Segmentaddresses are then translated into physical flash locations. Physicalflash locations have an address range bounded by the amount of flash inthe system in accordance with some embodiments. Medium addresses andsegment addresses are logical containers, and in some embodiments use a128 bit or larger identifier so as to be practically infinite, with alikelihood of reuse calculated as longer than the expected life of thesystem. Addresses from logical containers are allocated in ahierarchical fashion in some embodiments. Initially, each non-volatilesolid state storage unit 152 may be assigned a range of address space.Within this assigned range, the non-volatile solid state storage 152 isable to allocate addresses without synchronization with othernon-volatile solid state storage 152.

Data and metadata is stored by a set of underlying storage layouts thatare optimized for varying workload patterns and storage devices. Theselayouts incorporate multiple redundancy schemes, compression formats andindex algorithms. Some of these layouts store information aboutauthorities and authority masters, while others store file metadata andfile data. The redundancy schemes include error correction codes thattolerate corrupted bits within a single storage device (such as a NANDflash chip), erasure codes that tolerate the failure of multiple storagenodes, and replication schemes that tolerate data center or regionalfailures. In some embodiments, low density parity check (‘LDPC’) code isused within a single storage unit. Reed-Solomon encoding is used withina storage cluster, and mirroring is used within a storage grid in someembodiments. Metadata may be stored using an ordered log structuredindex (such as a Log Structured Merge Tree), and large data may not bestored in a log structured layout.

In order to maintain consistency across multiple copies of an entity,the storage nodes agree implicitly on two things through calculations:(1) the authority that contains the entity, and (2) the storage nodethat contains the authority. The assignment of entities to authoritiescan be done by pseudo randomly assigning entities to authorities, bysplitting entities into ranges based upon an externally produced key, orby placing a single entity into each authority. Examples of pseudorandomschemes are linear hashing and the Replication Under Scalable Hashing(‘RUSH’) family of hashes, including Controlled Replication UnderScalable Hashing (‘CRUSH’). In some embodiments, pseudorandom assignmentis utilized only for assigning authorities to nodes because the set ofnodes can change. The set of authorities cannot change so any subjectivefunction may be applied in these embodiments. Some placement schemesautomatically place authorities on storage nodes, while other placementschemes rely on an explicit mapping of authorities to storage nodes. Insome embodiments, a pseudorandom scheme is utilized to map from eachauthority to a set of candidate authority owners. A pseudorandom datadistribution function related to CRUSH may assign authorities to storagenodes and create a list of where the authorities are assigned. Eachstorage node has a copy of the pseudorandom data distribution function,and can arrive at the same calculation for distributing, and laterfinding or locating an authority. Each of the pseudorandom schemesrequires the reachable set of storage nodes as input in some embodimentsin order to conclude the same target nodes. Once an entity has beenplaced in an authority, the entity may be stored on physical devices sothat no expected failure will lead to unexpected data loss. In someembodiments, rebalancing algorithms attempt to store the copies of allentities within an authority in the same layout and on the same set ofmachines.

Examples of expected failures include device failures, stolen machines,datacenter fires, and regional disasters, such as nuclear or geologicalevents. Different failures lead to different levels of acceptable dataloss. In some embodiments, a stolen storage node impacts neither thesecurity nor the reliability of the system, while depending on systemconfiguration, a regional event could lead to no loss of data, a fewseconds or minutes of lost updates, or even complete data loss.

In the embodiments, the placement of data for storage redundancy isindependent of the placement of authorities for data consistency. Insome embodiments, storage nodes that contain authorities do not containany persistent storage. Instead, the storage nodes are connected tonon-volatile solid state storage units that do not contain authorities.The communications interconnect between storage nodes and non-volatilesolid state storage units consists of multiple communicationtechnologies and has non-uniform performance and fault tolerancecharacteristics. In some embodiments, as mentioned above, non-volatilesolid state storage units are connected to storage nodes via PCIexpress, storage nodes are connected together within a single chassisusing Ethernet backplane, and chassis are connected together to form astorage cluster. Storage clusters are connected to clients usingEthernet or fiber channel in some embodiments. If multiple storageclusters are configured into a storage grid, the multiple storageclusters are connected using the Internet or other long-distancenetworking links, such as a “metro scale” link or private link that doesnot traverse the internet.

Authority owners have the exclusive right to modify entities, to migrateentities from one non-volatile solid state storage unit to anothernon-volatile solid state storage unit, and to add and remove copies ofentities. This allows for maintaining the redundancy of the underlyingdata. When an authority owner fails, is going to be decommissioned, oris overloaded, the authority is transferred to a new storage node.Transient failures make it non-trivial to ensure that all non-faultymachines agree upon the new authority location. The ambiguity thatarises due to transient failures can be achieved automatically by aconsensus protocol such as Paxos, hot-warm failover schemes, via manualintervention by a remote system administrator, or by a local hardwareadministrator (such as by physically removing the failed machine fromthe cluster, or pressing a button on the failed machine). In someembodiments, a consensus protocol is used, and failover is automatic. Iftoo many failures or replication events occur in too short a timeperiod, the system goes into a self-preservation mode and haltsreplication and data movement activities until an administratorintervenes in accordance with some embodiments.

As authorities are transferred between storage nodes and authorityowners update entities in their authorities, the system transfersmessages between the storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storageunits. With regard to persistent messages, messages that have differentpurposes are of different types. Depending on the type of the message,the system maintains different ordering and durability guarantees. Asthe persistent messages are being processed, the messages aretemporarily stored in multiple durable and non-durable storage hardwaretechnologies. In some embodiments, messages are stored in RAM, NVRAM andon NAND flash devices, and a variety of protocols are used in order tomake efficient use of each storage medium. Latency-sensitive clientrequests may be persisted in replicated NVRAM, and then later NAND,while background rebalancing operations are persisted directly to NAND.

Persistent messages are persistently stored prior to being transmitted.This allows the system to continue to serve client requests despitefailures and component replacement. Although many hardware componentscontain unique identifiers that are visible to system administrators,manufacturer, hardware supply chain and ongoing monitoring qualitycontrol infrastructure, applications running on top of theinfrastructure address virtualize addresses. These virtualized addressesdo not change over the lifetime of the storage system, regardless ofcomponent failures and replacements. This allows each component of thestorage system to be replaced over time without reconfiguration ordisruptions of client request processing, i.e., the system supportsnon-disruptive upgrades.

In some embodiments, the virtualized addresses are stored withsufficient redundancy. A continuous monitoring system correlateshardware and software status and the hardware identifiers. This allowsdetection and prediction of failures due to faulty components andmanufacturing details. The monitoring system also enables the proactivetransfer of authorities and entities away from impacted devices beforefailure occurs by removing the component from the critical path in someembodiments.

FIG. 2C is a multiple level block diagram, showing contents of a storagenode 150 and contents of a non-volatile solid state storage 152 of thestorage node 150. Data is communicated to and from the storage node 150by a network interface controller (‘NIC’) 202 in some embodiments. Eachstorage node 150 has a CPU 156, and one or more non-volatile solid statestorage 152, as discussed above. Moving down one level in FIG. 2C, eachnon-volatile solid state storage 152 has a relatively fast non-volatilesolid state memory, such as nonvolatile random access memory (‘NVRAM’)204, and flash memory 206. In some embodiments, NVRAM 204 may be acomponent that does not require program/erase cycles (DRAM, MRAM, PCM),and can be a memory that can support being written vastly more oftenthan the memory is read from. Moving down another level in FIG. 2C, theNVRAM 204 is implemented in one embodiment as high speed volatilememory, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM) 216, backed up byenergy reserve 218. Energy reserve 218 provides sufficient electricalpower to keep the DRAM 216 powered long enough for contents to betransferred to the flash memory 206 in the event of power failure. Insome embodiments, energy reserve 218 is a capacitor, super-capacitor,battery, or other device, that supplies a suitable supply of energysufficient to enable the transfer of the contents of DRAM 216 to astable storage medium in the case of power loss. The flash memory 206 isimplemented as multiple flash dies 222, which may be referred to aspackages of flash dies 222 or an array of flash dies 222. It should beappreciated that the flash dies 222 could be packaged in any number ofways, with a single die per package, multiple dies per package (i.e.multichip packages), in hybrid packages, as bare dies on a printedcircuit board or other substrate, as encapsulated dies, etc. In theembodiment shown, the non-volatile solid state storage 152 has acontroller 212 or other processor, and an input output (I/O) port 210coupled to the controller 212. I/O port 210 is coupled to the CPU 156and/or the network interface controller 202 of the flash storage node150. Flash input output (I/O) port 220 is coupled to the flash dies 222,and a direct memory access unit (DMA) 214 is coupled to the controller212, the DRAM 216 and the flash dies 222. In the embodiment shown, theI/O port 210, controller 212, DMA unit 214 and flash I/O port 220 areimplemented on a programmable logic device (‘PLD’) 208, e.g., an FPGA.In this embodiment, each flash die 222 has pages, organized as sixteenkB (kilobyte) pages 224, and a register 226 through which data can bewritten to or read from the flash die 222. In further embodiments, othertypes of solid-state memory are used in place of, or in addition toflash memory illustrated within flash die 222.

Storage clusters 161, in various embodiments as disclosed herein, can becontrasted with storage arrays in general. The storage nodes 150 arepart of a collection that creates the storage cluster 161. Each storagenode 150 owns a slice of data and computing required to provide thedata. Multiple storage nodes 150 cooperate to store and retrieve thedata. Storage memory or storage devices, as used in storage arrays ingeneral, are less involved with processing and manipulating the data.Storage memory or storage devices in a storage array receive commands toread, write, or erase data. The storage memory or storage devices in astorage array are not aware of a larger system in which they areembedded, or what the data means. Storage memory or storage devices instorage arrays can include various types of storage memory, such as RAM,solid state drives, hard disk drives, etc. The storage units 152described herein have multiple interfaces active simultaneously andserving multiple purposes. In some embodiments, some of thefunctionality of a storage node 150 is shifted into a storage unit 152,transforming the storage unit 152 into a combination of storage unit 152and storage node 150. Placing computing (relative to storage data) intothe storage unit 152 places this computing closer to the data itself.The various system embodiments have a hierarchy of storage node layerswith different capabilities. By contrast, in a storage array, acontroller owns and knows everything about all of the data that thecontroller manages in a shelf or storage devices. In a storage cluster161, as described herein, multiple controllers in multiple storage units152 and/or storage nodes 150 cooperate in various ways (e.g., forerasure coding, data sharding, metadata communication and redundancy,storage capacity expansion or contraction, data recovery, and so on).

FIG. 2D shows a storage server environment, which uses embodiments ofthe storage nodes 150 and storage units 152 of FIGS. 2A-C. In thisversion, each storage unit 152 has a processor such as controller 212(see FIG. 2C), an FPGA, flash memory 206, and NVRAM 204 (which issuper-capacitor backed DRAM 216, see FIGS. 2B and 2C) on a PCIe(peripheral component interconnect express) board in a chassis 138 (seeFIG. 2A). The storage unit 152 may be implemented as a single boardcontaining storage, and may be the largest tolerable failure domaininside the chassis. In some embodiments, up to two storage units 152 mayfail and the device will continue with no data loss.

The physical storage is divided into named regions based on applicationusage in some embodiments. The NVRAM 204 is a contiguous block ofreserved memory in the storage unit 152 DRAM 216, and is backed by NANDflash. NVRAM 204 is logically divided into multiple memory regionswritten for two as spool (e.g., spool_region). Space within the NVRAM204 spools is managed by each authority 168 independently. Each deviceprovides an amount of storage space to each authority 168. Thatauthority 168 further manages lifetimes and allocations within thatspace. Examples of a spool include distributed transactions or notions.When the primary power to a storage unit 152 fails, onboardsuper-capacitors provide a short duration of power hold up. During thisholdup interval, the contents of the NVRAM 204 are flushed to flashmemory 206. On the next power-on, the contents of the NVRAM 204 arerecovered from the flash memory 206.

As for the storage unit controller, the responsibility of the logical“controller” is distributed across each of the blades containingauthorities 168. This distribution of logical control is shown in FIG.2D as a host controller 242, mid-tier controller 244 and storage unitcontroller(s) 246. Management of the control plane and the storage planeare treated independently, although parts may be physically co-locatedon the same blade. Each authority 168 effectively serves as anindependent controller. Each authority 168 provides its own data andmetadata structures, its own background workers, and maintains its ownlifecycle.

FIG. 2E is a blade 252 hardware block diagram, showing a control plane254, compute and storage planes 256, 258, and authorities 168interacting with underlying physical resources, using embodiments of thestorage nodes 150 and storage units 152 of FIGS. 2A-C in the storageserver environment of FIG. 2D. The control plane 254 is partitioned intoa number of authorities 168 which can use the compute resources in thecompute plane 256 to run on any of the blades 252. The storage plane 258is partitioned into a set of devices, each of which provides access toflash 206 and NVRAM 204 resources. In one embodiment, the compute plane256 may perform the operations of a storage array controller, asdescribed herein, on one or more devices of the storage plane 258 (e.g.,a storage array).

In the compute and storage planes 256, 258 of FIG. 2E, the authorities168 interact with the underlying physical resources (i.e., devices).From the point of view of an authority 168, its resources are stripedover all of the physical devices. From the point of view of a device, itprovides resources to all authorities 168, irrespective of where theauthorities happen to run. Each authority 168 has allocated or has beenallocated one or more partitions 260 of storage memory in the storageunits 152, e.g. partitions 260 in flash memory 206 and NVRAM 204. Eachauthority 168 uses those allocated partitions 260 that belong to it, forwriting or reading user data. Authorities can be associated withdiffering amounts of physical storage of the system. For example, oneauthority 168 could have a larger number of partitions 260 or largersized partitions 260 in one or more storage units 152 than one or moreother authorities 168.

FIG. 2F depicts elasticity software layers in blades 252 of a storagecluster, in accordance with some embodiments. In the elasticitystructure, elasticity software is symmetric, i.e., each blade's computemodule 270 runs the three identical layers of processes depicted in FIG.2F. Storage managers 274 execute read and write requests from otherblades 252 for data and metadata stored in local storage unit 152 NVRAM204 and flash 206. Authorities 168 fulfill client requests by issuingthe necessary reads and writes to the blades 252 on whose storage units152 the corresponding data or metadata resides. Endpoints 272 parseclient connection requests received from switch fabric 146 supervisorysoftware, relay the client connection requests to the authorities 168responsible for fulfillment, and relay the authorities' 168 responses toclients. The symmetric three-layer structure enables the storagesystem's high degree of concurrency. Elasticity scales out efficientlyand reliably in these embodiments. In addition, elasticity implements aunique scale-out technique that balances work evenly across allresources regardless of client access pattern, and maximizes concurrencyby eliminating much of the need for inter-blade coordination thattypically occurs with conventional distributed locking.

Still referring to FIG. 2F, authorities 168 running in the computemodules 270 of a blade 252 perform the internal operations required tofulfill client requests. One feature of elasticity is that authorities168 are stateless, i.e., they cache active data and metadata in theirown blades' 252 DRAMs for fast access, but the authorities store everyupdate in their NVRAM 204 partitions on three separate blades 252 untilthe update has been written to flash 206. All the storage system writesto NVRAM 204 are in triplicate to partitions on three separate blades252 in some embodiments. With triple-mirrored NVRAM 204 and persistentstorage protected by parity and Reed-Solomon RAID checksums, the storagesystem can survive concurrent failure of two blades 252 with no loss ofdata, metadata, or access to either.

Because authorities 168 are stateless, they can migrate between blades252. Each authority 168 has a unique identifier. NVRAM 204 and flash 206partitions are associated with authorities' 168 identifiers, not withthe blades 252 on which they are running in some. Thus, when anauthority 168 migrates, the authority 168 continues to manage the samestorage partitions from its new location. When a new blade 252 isinstalled in an embodiment of the storage cluster, the systemautomatically rebalances load by: partitioning the new blade's 252storage for use by the system's authorities 168, migrating selectedauthorities 168 to the new blade 252, starting endpoints 272 on the newblade 252 and including them in the switch fabric's 146 clientconnection distribution algorithm.

From their new locations, migrated authorities 168 persist the contentsof their NVRAM 204 partitions on flash 206, process read and writerequests from other authorities 168, and fulfill the client requeststhat endpoints 272 direct to them. Similarly, if a blade 252 fails or isremoved, the system redistributes its authorities 168 among the system'sremaining blades 252. The redistributed authorities 168 continue toperform their original functions from their new locations.

FIG. 2G depicts authorities 168 and storage resources in blades 252 of astorage cluster, in accordance with some embodiments. Each authority 168is exclusively responsible for a partition of the flash 206 and NVRAM204 on each blade 252. The authority 168 manages the content andintegrity of its partitions independently of other authorities 168.Authorities 168 compress incoming data and preserve it temporarily intheir NVRAM 204 partitions, and then consolidate, RAID-protect, andpersist the data in segments of the storage in their flash 206partitions. As the authorities 168 write data to flash 206, storagemanagers 274 perform the necessary flash translation to optimize writeperformance and maximize media longevity. In the background, authorities168 “garbage collect,” or reclaim space occupied by data that clientshave made obsolete by overwriting the data. It should be appreciatedthat since authorities' 168 partitions are disjoint, there is no needfor distributed locking to execute client and writes or to performbackground functions.

The embodiments described herein may utilize various software,communication and/or networking protocols. In addition, theconfiguration of the hardware and/or software may be adjusted toaccommodate various protocols. For example, the embodiments may utilizeActive Directory, which is a database based system that providesauthentication, directory, policy, and other services in a WINDOWS™environment. In these embodiments, LDAP (Lightweight Directory AccessProtocol) is one example application protocol for querying and modifyingitems in directory service providers such as Active Directory. In someembodiments, a network lock manager (‘NLM’) is utilized as a facilitythat works in cooperation with the Network File System (‘NFS’) toprovide a System V style of advisory file and record locking over anetwork. The Server Message Block (‘SMB’) protocol, one version of whichis also known as Common Internet File System (‘CIFS’), may be integratedwith the storage systems discussed herein. SMP operates as anapplication-layer network protocol typically used for providing sharedaccess to files, printers, and serial ports and miscellaneouscommunications between nodes on a network. SMB also provides anauthenticated inter-process communication mechanism. AMAZON™ S3 (SimpleStorage Service) is a web service offered by Amazon Web Services, andthe systems described herein may interface with Amazon S3 through webservices interfaces (REST (representational state transfer), SOAP(simple object access protocol), and BitTorrent). A RESTful API(application programming interface) breaks down a transaction to createa series of small modules. Each module addresses a particular underlyingpart of the transaction. The control or permissions provided with theseembodiments, especially for object data, may include utilization of anaccess control list (‘ACL’). The ACL is a list of permissions attachedto an object and the ACL specifies which users or system processes aregranted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed ongiven objects. The systems may utilize Internet Protocol version 6(‘IPv6’), as well as IPv4, for the communications protocol that providesan identification and location system for computers on networks androutes traffic across the Internet. The routing of packets betweennetworked systems may include Equal-cost multi-path routing (‘ECMP’),which is a routing strategy where next-hop packet forwarding to a singledestination can occur over multiple “best paths” which tie for top placein routing metric calculations. Multi-path routing can be used inconjunction with most routing protocols, because it is a per-hopdecision limited to a single router. The software may supportMulti-tenancy, which is an architecture in which a single instance of asoftware application serves multiple customers. Each customer may bereferred to as a tenant. Tenants may be given the ability to customizesome parts of the application, but may not customize the application'scode, in some embodiments. The embodiments may maintain audit logs. Anaudit log is a document that records an event in a computing system. Inaddition to documenting what resources were accessed, audit log entriestypically include destination and source addresses, a timestamp, anduser login information for compliance with various regulations. Theembodiments may support various key management policies, such asencryption key rotation. In addition, the system may support dynamicroot passwords or some variation dynamically changing passwords.

FIG. 3A sets forth a diagram of a storage system 306 that is coupled fordata communications with a cloud services provider 302 in accordancewith some embodiments of the present disclosure. Although depicted inless detail, the storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3A may be similarto the storage systems described above with reference to FIGS. 1A-1D andFIGS. 2A-2G. In some embodiments, the storage system 306 depicted inFIG. 3A may be embodied as a storage system that includes imbalancedactive/active controllers, as a storage system that includes balancedactive/active controllers, as a storage system that includesactive/active controllers where less than all of each controller'sresources are utilized such that each controller has reserve resourcesthat may be used to support failover, as a storage system that includesfully active/active controllers, as a storage system that includesdataset-segregated controllers, as a storage system that includesdual-layer architectures with front-end controllers and back-endintegrated storage controllers, as a storage system that includesscale-out clusters of dual-controller arrays, as well as combinations ofsuch embodiments.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, the storage system 306 is coupled tothe cloud services provider 302 via a data communications link 304. Thedata communications link 304 may be embodied as a dedicated datacommunications link, as a data communications pathway that is providedthrough the use of one or data communications networks such as a widearea network (‘WAN’) or LAN, or as some other mechanism capable oftransporting digital information between the storage system 306 and thecloud services provider 302. Such a data communications link 304 may befully wired, fully wireless, or some aggregation of wired and wirelessdata communications pathways. In such an example, digital informationmay be exchanged between the storage system 306 and the cloud servicesprovider 302 via the data communications link 304 using one or more datacommunications protocols. For example, digital information may beexchanged between the storage system 306 and the cloud services provider302 via the data communications link 304 using the handheld devicetransfer protocol (‘HDTP’), hypertext transfer protocol (‘HTTP’),internet protocol (‘IP’), real-time transfer protocol (‘RTP’),transmission control protocol (‘TCP’), user datagram protocol (‘UDP’),wireless application protocol (‘WAP’), or other protocol.

The cloud services provider 302 depicted in FIG. 3A may be embodied, forexample, as a system and computing environment that provides a vastarray of services to users of the cloud services provider 302 throughthe sharing of computing resources via the data communications link 304.The cloud services provider 302 may provide on-demand access to a sharedpool of configurable computing resources such as computer networks,servers, storage, applications and services, and so on. The shared poolof configurable resources may be rapidly provisioned and released to auser of the cloud services provider 302 with minimal management effort.Generally, the user of the cloud services provider 302 is unaware of theexact computing resources utilized by the cloud services provider 302 toprovide the services. Although in many cases such a cloud servicesprovider 302 may be accessible via the Internet, readers of skill in theart will recognize that any system that abstracts the use of sharedresources to provide services to a user through any data communicationslink may be considered a cloud services provider 302.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, the cloud services provider 302 maybe configured to provide a variety of services to the storage system 306and users of the storage system 306 through the implementation ofvarious service models. For example, the cloud services provider 302 maybe configured to provide services through the implementation of aninfrastructure as a service (‘IaaS’) service model, through theimplementation of a platform as a service (‘PaaS’) service model,through the implementation of a software as a service (‘SaaS’) servicemodel, through the implementation of an authentication as a service(‘AaaS’) service model, through the implementation of a storage as aservice model where the cloud services provider 302 offers access to itsstorage infrastructure for use by the storage system 306 and users ofthe storage system 306, and so on. Readers will appreciate that thecloud services provider 302 may be configured to provide additionalservices to the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306through the implementation of additional service models, as the servicemodels described above are included only for explanatory purposes and inno way represent a limitation of the services that may be offered by thecloud services provider 302 or a limitation as to the service modelsthat may be implemented by the cloud services provider 302.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, the cloud services provider 302 maybe embodied, for example, as a private cloud, as a public cloud, or as acombination of a private cloud and public cloud. In an embodiment inwhich the cloud services provider 302 is embodied as a private cloud,the cloud services provider 302 may be dedicated to providing servicesto a single organization rather than providing services to multipleorganizations. In an embodiment where the cloud services provider 302 isembodied as a public cloud, the cloud services provider 302 may provideservices to multiple organizations. In still alternative embodiments,the cloud services provider 302 may be embodied as a mix of a privateand public cloud services with a hybrid cloud deployment.

Although not explicitly depicted in FIG. 3A, readers will appreciatethat a vast amount of additional hardware components and additionalsoftware components may be necessary to facilitate the delivery of cloudservices to the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306.For example, the storage system 306 may be coupled to (or even include)a cloud storage gateway. Such a cloud storage gateway may be embodied,for example, as hardware-based or software-based appliance that islocated on premise with the storage system 306. Such a cloud storagegateway may operate as a bridge between local applications that areexecuting on the storage array 306 and remote, cloud-based storage thatis utilized by the storage array 306. Through the use of a cloud storagegateway, organizations may move primary iSCSI or NAS to the cloudservices provider 302, thereby enabling the organization to save spaceon their on-premises storage systems. Such a cloud storage gateway maybe configured to emulate a disk array, a block-based device, a fileserver, or other storage system that can translate the SCSI commands,file server commands, or other appropriate command into REST-spaceprotocols that facilitate communications with the cloud servicesprovider 302.

In order to enable the storage system 306 and users of the storagesystem 306 to make use of the services provided by the cloud servicesprovider 302, a cloud migration process may take place during whichdata, applications, or other elements from an organization's localsystems (or even from another cloud environment) are moved to the cloudservices provider 302. In order to successfully migrate data,applications, or other elements to the cloud services provider's 302environment, middleware such as a cloud migration tool may be utilizedto bridge gaps between the cloud services provider's 302 environment andan organization's environment. Such cloud migration tools may also beconfigured to address potentially high network costs and long transfertimes associated with migrating large volumes of data to the cloudservices provider 302, as well as addressing security concernsassociated with sensitive data to the cloud services provider 302 overdata communications networks. In order to further enable the storagesystem 306 and users of the storage system 306 to make use of theservices provided by the cloud services provider 302, a cloudorchestrator may also be used to arrange and coordinate automated tasksin pursuit of creating a consolidated process or workflow. Such a cloudorchestrator may perform tasks such as configuring various components,whether those components are cloud components or on-premises components,as well as managing the interconnections between such components. Thecloud orchestrator can simplify the inter-component communication andconnections to ensure that links are correctly configured andmaintained.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, and as described briefly above, thecloud services provider 302 may be configured to provide services to thestorage system 306 and users of the storage system 306 through the usageof a SaaS service model, eliminating the need to install and run theapplication on local computers, which may simplify maintenance andsupport of the application. Such applications may take many forms inaccordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure. Forexample, the cloud services provider 302 may be configured to provideaccess to data analytics applications to the storage system 306 andusers of the storage system 306. Such data analytics applications may beconfigured, for example, to receive vast amounts of telemetry dataphoned home by the storage system 306. Such telemetry data may describevarious operating characteristics of the storage system 306 and may beanalyzed for a vast array of purposes including, for example, todetermine the health of the storage system 306, to identify workloadsthat are executing on the storage system 306, to predict when thestorage system 306 will run out of various resources, to recommendconfiguration changes, hardware or software upgrades, workflowmigrations, or other actions that may improve the operation of thestorage system 306.

The cloud services provider 302 may also be configured to provide accessto virtualized computing environments to the storage system 306 andusers of the storage system 306. Such virtualized computing environmentsmay be embodied, for example, as a virtual machine or other virtualizedcomputer hardware platforms, virtual storage devices, virtualizedcomputer network resources, and so on. Examples of such virtualizedenvironments can include virtual machines that are created to emulate anactual computer, virtualized desktop environments that separate alogical desktop from a physical machine, virtualized file systems thatallow uniform access to different types of concrete file systems, andmany others.

For further explanation, FIG. 3B sets forth a diagram of a storagesystem 306 in accordance with some embodiments of the presentdisclosure. Although depicted in less detail, the storage system 306depicted in FIG. 3B may be similar to the storage systems describedabove with reference to FIGS. 1A-1D and FIGS. 2A-2G as the storagesystem may include many of the components described above.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may include a vast amount ofstorage resources 308, which may be embodied in many forms. For example,the storage resources 308 can include nano-RAM or another form ofnonvolatile random access memory that utilizes carbon nanotubesdeposited on a substrate, 3D crosspoint non-volatile memory, flashmemory including single-level cell (‘SLC’) NAND flash, multi-level cell(‘MLC’) NAND flash, triple-level cell (‘TLC’) NAND flash, quad-levelcell (‘QLC’) NAND flash, or others. Likewise, the storage resources 308may include non-volatile magnetoresistive random-access memory (‘MRAM’),including spin transfer torque (‘STT’) MRAM. The example storageresources 308 may alternatively include non-volatile phase-change memory(‘PCM’), quantum memory that allows for the storage and retrieval ofphotonic quantum information, resistive random-access memory (‘ReRAM’),storage class memory (‘SCM’), or other form of storage resources,including any combination of resources described herein. Readers willappreciate that other forms of computer memories and storage devices maybe utilized by the storage systems described above, including DRAM,SRAM, EEPROM, universal memory, and many others. The storage resources308 depicted in FIG. 3A may be embodied in a variety of form factors,including but not limited to, dual in-line memory modules (‘DIMMs’),non-volatile dual in-line memory modules (‘NVDIMMs’), M.2, U.2, andothers.

The storage resources 308 depicted in FIG. 3A may include various formsof SCM. SCM may effectively treat fast, non-volatile memory (e.g., NANDflash) as an extension of DRAM such that an entire dataset may betreated as an in-memory dataset that resides entirely in DRAM. SCM mayinclude non-volatile media such as, for example, NAND flash. Such NANDflash may be accessed utilizing NVMe that can use the PCIe bus as itstransport, providing for relatively low access latencies compared toolder protocols. In fact, the network protocols used for SSDs inall-flash arrays can include NVMe using Ethernet (ROCE, NVME TCP), FibreChannel (NVMe FC), InfiniBand (iWARP), and others that make it possibleto treat fast, non-volatile memory as an extension of DRAM. In view ofthe fact that DRAM is often byte-addressable and fast, non-volatilememory such as NAND flash is block-addressable, a controllersoftware/hardware stack may be needed to convert the block data to thebytes that are stored in the media. Examples of media and software thatmay be used as SCM can include, for example, 3D XPoint, Intel MemoryDrive Technology, Samsung's Z-SSD, and others.

The example storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may implement avariety of storage architectures. For example, storage systems inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure may utilizeblock storage where data is stored in blocks, and each block essentiallyacts as an individual hard drive. Storage systems in accordance withsome embodiments of the present disclosure may utilize object storage,where data is managed as objects. Each object may include the dataitself, a variable amount of metadata, and a globally unique identifier,where object storage can be implemented at multiple levels (e.g., devicelevel, system level, interface level). Storage systems in accordancewith some embodiments of the present disclosure utilize file storage inwhich data is stored in a hierarchical structure. Such data may be savedin files and folders, and presented to both the system storing it andthe system retrieving it in the same format.

The example storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may be embodied as astorage system in which additional storage resources can be addedthrough the use of a scale-up model, additional storage resources can beadded through the use of a scale-out model, or through some combinationthereof. In a scale-up model, additional storage may be added by addingadditional storage devices. In a scale-out model, however, additionalstorage nodes may be added to a cluster of storage nodes, where suchstorage nodes can include additional processing resources, additionalnetworking resources, and so on.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B also includes communicationsresources 310 that may be useful in facilitating data communicationsbetween components within the storage system 306, as well as datacommunications between the storage system 306 and computing devices thatare outside of the storage system 306, including embodiments where thoseresources are separated by a relatively vast expanse. The communicationsresources 310 may be configured to utilize a variety of differentprotocols and data communication fabrics to facilitate datacommunications between components within the storage systems as well ascomputing devices that are outside of the storage system. For example,the communications resources 310 can include fibre channel (‘FC’)technologies such as FC fabrics and FC protocols that can transport SCSIcommands over FC network, FC over ethernet (‘FCoE’) technologies throughwhich FC frames are encapsulated and transmitted over Ethernet networks,InfiniBand (‘IB’) technologies in which a switched fabric topology isutilized to facilitate transmissions between channel adapters, NVMExpress (‘NVMe’) technologies and NVMe over fabrics (‘NVMeoF’)technologies through which non-volatile storage media attached via a PCIexpress (‘PCIe’) bus may be accessed, and others. In fact, the storagesystems described above may, directly or indirectly, make use ofneutrino communication technologies and devices through whichinformation (including binary information) is transmitted using a beamof neutrinos.

The communications resources 310 can also include mechanisms foraccessing storage resources 308 within the storage system 306 utilizingserial attached SCSI (‘SAS’), serial ATA (‘SATA’) bus interfaces forconnecting storage resources 308 within the storage system 306 to hostbus adapters within the storage system 306, internet small computersystems interface (‘iSCSI’) technologies to provide block-level accessto storage resources 308 within the storage system 306, and othercommunications resources that that may be useful in facilitating datacommunications between components within the storage system 306, as wellas data communications between the storage system 306 and computingdevices that are outside of the storage system 306.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B also includes processingresources 312 that may be useful in useful in executing computer programinstructions and performing other computational tasks within the storagesystem 306. The processing resources 312 may include one or more ASICsthat are customized for some particular purpose as well as one or moreCPUs. The processing resources 312 may also include one or more DSPs,one or more FPGAs, one or more systems on a chip (‘SoCs’), or other formof processing resources 312. The storage system 306 may utilize thestorage resources 312 to perform a variety of tasks including, but notlimited to, supporting the execution of software resources 314 that willbe described in greater detail below.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B also includes softwareresources 314 that, when executed by processing resources 312 within thestorage system 306, may perform a vast array of tasks. The softwareresources 314 may include, for example, one or more modules of computerprogram instructions that when executed by processing resources 312within the storage system 306 are useful in carrying out various dataprotection techniques to preserve the integrity of data that is storedwithin the storage systems. Readers will appreciate that such dataprotection techniques may be carried out, for example, by systemsoftware executing on computer hardware within the storage system, by acloud services provider, or in other ways. Such data protectiontechniques can include, for example, data archiving techniques thatcause data that is no longer actively used to be moved to a separatestorage device or separate storage system for long-term retention, databackup techniques through which data stored in the storage system may becopied and stored in a distinct location to avoid data loss in the eventof equipment failure or some other form of catastrophe with the storagesystem, data replication techniques through which data stored in thestorage system is replicated to another storage system such that thedata may be accessible via multiple storage systems, data snapshottingtechniques through which the state of data within the storage system iscaptured at various points in time, data and database cloning techniquesthrough which duplicate copies of data and databases may be created, andother data protection techniques.

The software resources 314 may also include software that is useful inimplementing software-defined storage (‘SDS’). In such an example, thesoftware resources 314 may include one or more modules of computerprogram instructions that, when executed, are useful in policy-basedprovisioning and management of data storage that is independent of theunderlying hardware. Such software resources 314 may be useful inimplementing storage virtualization to separate the storage hardwarefrom the software that manages the storage hardware.

The software resources 314 may also include software that is useful infacilitating and optimizing I/O operations that are directed to thestorage resources 308 in the storage system 306. For example, thesoftware resources 314 may include software modules that perform carryout various data reduction techniques such as, for example, datacompression, data deduplication, and others. The software resources 314may include software modules that intelligently group together I/Ooperations to facilitate better usage of the underlying storage resource308, software modules that perform data migration operations to migratefrom within a storage system, as well as software modules that performother functions. Such software resources 314 may be embodied as one ormore software containers or in many other ways.

For further explanation, FIG. 3C sets forth an example of a cloud-basedstorage system 318 in accordance with some embodiments of the presentdisclosure. In the example depicted in FIG. 3C, the cloud-based storagesystem 318 is created entirely in a cloud computing environment 316 suchas, for example, Amazon Web Services (‘AWS’), Microsoft Azure, GoogleCloud Platform, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and others. The cloud-basedstorage system 318 may be used to provide services similar to theservices that may be provided by the storage systems described above.For example, the cloud-based storage system 318 may be used to provideblock storage services to users of the cloud-based storage system 318,the cloud-based storage system 318 may be used to provide storageservices to users of the cloud-based storage system 318 through the useof solid-state storage, and so on.

The cloud-based storage system 318 depicted in FIG. 3C includes twocloud computing instances 320, 322 that each are used to support theexecution of a storage controller application 324, 326. The cloudcomputing instances 320, 322 may be embodied, for example, as instancesof cloud computing resources (e.g., virtual machines) that may beprovided by the cloud computing environment 316 to support the executionof software applications such as the storage controller application 324,326. In one embodiment, the cloud computing instances 320, 322 may beembodied as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (‘EC2’) instances. In such anexample, an Amazon Machine Image (‘AMI’) that includes the storagecontroller application 324, 326 may be booted to create and configure avirtual machine that may execute the storage controller application 324,326.

In the example method depicted in FIG. 3C, the storage controllerapplication 324, 326 may be embodied as a module of computer programinstructions that, when executed, carries out various storage tasks. Forexample, the storage controller application 324, 326 may be embodied asa module of computer program instructions that, when executed, carriesout the same tasks as the controllers 110A, 1108 in FIG. 1A describedabove such as writing data received from the users of the cloud-basedstorage system 318 to the cloud-based storage system 318, erasing datafrom the cloud-based storage system 318, retrieving data from thecloud-based storage system 318 and providing such data to users of thecloud-based storage system 318, monitoring and reporting of diskutilization and performance, performing redundancy operations, such asRAID or RAID-like data redundancy operations, compressing data,encrypting data, deduplicating data, and so forth. Readers willappreciate that because there are two cloud computing instances 320, 322that each include the storage controller application 324, 326, in someembodiments one cloud computing instance 320 may operate as the primarycontroller as described above while the other cloud computing instance322 may operate as the secondary controller as described above. Readerswill appreciate that the storage controller application 324, 326depicted in FIG. 3C may include identical source code that is executedwithin different cloud computing instances 320, 322.

Consider an example in which the cloud computing environment 316 isembodied as AWS and the cloud computing instances are embodied as EC2instances. In such an example, the cloud computing instance 320 thatoperates as the primary controller may be deployed on one of theinstance types that has a relatively large amount of memory andprocessing power while the cloud computing instance 322 that operates asthe secondary controller may be deployed on one of the instance typesthat has a relatively small amount of memory and processing power. Insuch an example, upon the occurrence of a failover event where the rolesof primary and secondary are switched, a double failover may actually becarried out such that: 1) a first failover event where the cloudcomputing instance 322 that formerly operated as the secondarycontroller begins to operate as the primary controller, and 2) a thirdcloud computing instance (not shown) that is of an instance type thathas a relatively large amount of memory and processing power is spun upwith a copy of the storage controller application, where the third cloudcomputing instance begins operating as the primary controller while thecloud computing instance 322 that originally operated as the secondarycontroller begins operating as the secondary controller again. In suchan example, the cloud computing instance 320 that formerly operated asthe primary controller may be terminated. Readers will appreciate thatin alternative embodiments, the cloud computing instance 320 that isoperating as the secondary controller after the failover event maycontinue to operate as the secondary controller and the cloud computinginstance 322 that operated as the primary controller after theoccurrence of the failover event may be terminated once the primary rolehas been assumed by the third cloud computing instance (not shown).

Readers will appreciate that while the embodiments described aboverelate to embodiments where one cloud computing instance 320 operates asthe primary controller and the second cloud computing instance 322operates as the secondary controller, other embodiments are within thescope of the present disclosure. For example, each cloud computinginstance 320, 322 may operate as a primary controller for some portionof the address space supported by the cloud-based storage system 318,each cloud computing instance 320, 322 may operate as a primarycontroller where the servicing of I/O operations directed to thecloud-based storage system 318 are divided in some other way, and so on.In fact, in other embodiments where costs savings may be prioritizedover performance demands, only a single cloud computing instance mayexist that contains the storage controller application.

The cloud-based storage system 318 depicted in FIG. 3C includes cloudcomputing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334,338. The cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n depicted in FIG.3C may be embodied, for example, as instances of cloud computingresources that may be provided by the cloud computing environment 316 tosupport the execution of software applications. The cloud computinginstances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n of FIG. 3C may differ from the cloudcomputing instances 320, 322 described above as the cloud computinginstances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n of FIG. 3C have local storage 330, 334,338 resources whereas the cloud computing instances 320, 322 thatsupport the execution of the storage controller application 324, 326need not have local storage resources. The cloud computing instances 340a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 may be embodied, forexample, as EC2 M5 instances that include one or more SSDs, as EC2 R5instances that include one or more SSDs, as EC2 I3 instances thatinclude one or more SSDs, and so on. In some embodiments, the localstorage 330, 334, 338 must be embodied as solid-state storage (e.g.,SSDs) rather than storage that makes use of hard disk drives.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3C, each of the cloud computinginstances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 caninclude a software daemon 328, 332, 336 that, when executed by a cloudcomputing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n can present itself to the storagecontroller applications 324, 326 as if the cloud computing instance 340a, 340 b, 340 n were a physical storage device (e.g., one or more SSDs).In such an example, the software daemon 328, 332, 336 may includecomputer program instructions similar to those that would normally becontained on a storage device such that the storage controllerapplications 324, 326 can send and receive the same commands that astorage controller would send to storage devices. In such a way, thestorage controller applications 324, 326 may include code that isidentical to (or substantially identical to) the code that would beexecuted by the controllers in the storage systems described above. Inthese and similar embodiments, communications between the storagecontroller applications 324, 326 and the cloud computing instances 340a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 may utilize iSCSI, NVMeover TCP, messaging, a custom protocol, or in some other mechanism.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3C, each of the cloud computinginstances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 may alsobe coupled to block-storage 342, 344, 346 that is offered by the cloudcomputing environment 316. The block-storage 342, 344, 346 that isoffered by the cloud computing environment 316 may be embodied, forexample, as Amazon Elastic Block Store (‘EBS’) volumes. For example, afirst EBS volume may be coupled to a first cloud computing instance 340a, a second EBS volume may be coupled to a second cloud computinginstance 340 b, and a third EBS volume may be coupled to a third cloudcomputing instance 340 n. In such an example, the block-storage 342,344, 346 that is offered by the cloud computing environment 316 may beutilized in a manner that is similar to how the NVRAM devices describedabove are utilized, as the software daemon 328, 332, 336 (or some othermodule) that is executing within a particular cloud comping instance 340a, 340 b, 340 n may, upon receiving a request to write data, initiate awrite of the data to its attached EBS volume as well as a write of thedata to its local storage 330, 334, 338 resources. In some alternativeembodiments, data may only be written to the local storage 330, 334, 338resources within a particular cloud comping instance 340 a, 340 b, 340n. In an alternative embodiment, rather than using the block-storage342, 344, 346 that is offered by the cloud computing environment 316 asNVRAM, actual RAM on each of the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b,340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 may be used as NVRAM, therebydecreasing network utilization costs that would be associated with usingan EBS volume as the NVRAM.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3C, the cloud computing instances 340 a,340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 may be utilized, by cloudcomputing instances 320, 322 that support the execution of the storagecontroller application 324, 326 to service I/O operations that aredirected to the cloud-based storage system 318. Consider an example inwhich a first cloud computing instance 320 that is executing the storagecontroller application 324 is operating as the primary controller. Insuch an example, the first cloud computing instance 320 that isexecuting the storage controller application 324 may receive (directlyor indirectly via the secondary controller) requests to write data tothe cloud-based storage system 318 from users of the cloud-based storagesystem 318. In such an example, the first cloud computing instance 320that is executing the storage controller application 324 may performvarious tasks such as, for example, deduplicating the data contained inthe request, compressing the data contained in the request, determiningwhere to the write the data contained in the request, and so on, beforeultimately sending a request to write a deduplicated, encrypted, orotherwise possibly updated version of the data to one or more of thecloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330,334, 338. Either cloud computing instance 320, 322, in some embodiments,may receive a request to read data from the cloud-based storage system318 and may ultimately send a request to read data to one or more of thecloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330,334, 338.

Readers will appreciate that when a request to write data is received bya particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with localstorage 330, 334, 338, the software daemon 328, 332, 336 or some othermodule of computer program instructions that is executing on theparticular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n may beconfigured to not only write the data to its own local storage 330, 334,338 resources and any appropriate block-storage 342, 344, 346 that areoffered by the cloud computing environment 316, but the software daemon328, 332, 336 or some other module of computer program instructions thatis executing on the particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b,340 n may also be configured to write the data to cloud-based objectstorage 348 that is attached to the particular cloud computing instance340 a, 340 b, 340 n. The cloud-based object storage 348 that is attachedto the particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n may beembodied, for example, as Amazon Simple Storage Service (‘S3’) storagethat is accessible by the particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340b, 340 n. In other embodiments, the cloud computing instances 320, 322that each include the storage controller application 324, 326 mayinitiate the storage of the data in the local storage 330, 334, 338 ofthe cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n and the cloud-basedobject storage 348.

Readers will appreciate that, as described above, the cloud-basedstorage system 318 may be used to provide block storage services tousers of the cloud-based storage system 318. While the local storage330, 334, 338 resources and the block-storage 342, 344, 346 resourcesthat are utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 nmay support block-level access, the cloud-based object storage 348 thatis attached to the particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340n supports only object-based access. In order to address this, thesoftware daemon 328, 332, 336 or some other module of computer programinstructions that is executing on the particular cloud computinginstance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n may be configured to take blocks of data,package those blocks into objects, and write the objects to thecloud-based object storage 348 that is attached to the particular cloudcomputing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n.

Consider an example in which data is written to the local storage 330,334, 338 resources and the block-storage 342, 344, 346 resources thatare utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n in 1MB blocks. In such an example, assume that a user of the cloud-basedstorage system 318 issues a request to write data that, after beingcompressed and deduplicated by the storage controller application 324,326 results in the need to write 5 MB of data. In such an example,writing the data to the local storage 330, 334, 338 resources and theblock-storage 342, 344, 346 resources that are utilized by the cloudcomputing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n is relatively straightforward as5 blocks that are 1 MB in size are written to the local storage 330,334, 338 resources and the block-storage 342, 344, 346 resources thatare utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n. Insuch an example, the software daemon 328, 332, 336 or some other moduleof computer program instructions that is executing on the particularcloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n may be configured to: 1)create a first object that includes the first 1 MB of data and write thefirst object to the cloud-based object storage 348, 2) create a secondobject that includes the second 1 MB of data and write the second objectto the cloud-based object storage 348, 3) create a third object thatincludes the third 1 MB of data and write the third object to thecloud-based object storage 348, and so on. As such, in some embodiments,each object that is written to the cloud-based object storage 348 may beidentical (or nearly identical) in size. Readers will appreciate that insuch an example, metadata that is associated with the data itself may beincluded in each object (e.g., the first 1 MB of the object is data andthe remaining portion is metadata associated with the data).

Readers will appreciate that the cloud-based object storage 348 may beincorporated into the cloud-based storage system 318 to increase thedurability of the cloud-based storage system 318. Continuing with theexample described above where the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340b, 340 n are EC2 instances, readers will understand that EC2 instancesare only guaranteed to have a monthly uptime of 99.9% and data stored inthe local instance store only persists during the lifetime of the EC2instance. As such, relying on the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 as the only source ofpersistent data storage in the cloud-based storage system 318 may resultin a relatively unreliable storage system. Likewise, EBS volumes aredesigned for 99.999% availability. As such, even relying on EBS as thepersistent data store in the cloud-based storage system 318 may resultin a storage system that is not sufficiently durable. Amazon S3,however, is designed to provide 99.999999999% durability, meaning that acloud-based storage system 318 that can incorporate S3 into its pool ofstorage is substantially more durable than various other options.

Readers will appreciate that while a cloud-based storage system 318 thatcan incorporate S3 into its pool of storage is substantially moredurable than various other options, utilizing S3 as the primary pool ofstorage may result in storage system that has relatively slow responsetimes and relatively long I/O latencies. As such, the cloud-basedstorage system 318 depicted in FIG. 3C not only stores data in S3 butthe cloud-based storage system 318 also stores data in local storage330, 334, 338 resources and block-storage 342, 344, 346 resources thatare utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n, suchthat read operations can be serviced from local storage 330, 334, 338resources and the block-storage 342, 344, 346 resources that areutilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n, therebyreducing read latency when users of the cloud-based storage system 318attempt to read data from the cloud-based storage system 318.

In some embodiments, all data that is stored by the cloud-based storagesystem 318 may be stored in both: 1) the cloud-based object storage 348,and 2) at least one of the local storage 330, 334, 338 resources orblock-storage 342, 344, 346 resources that are utilized by the cloudcomputing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n. In such embodiments, the localstorage 330, 334, 338 resources and block-storage 342, 344, 346resources that are utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340b, 340 n may effectively operate as cache that generally includes alldata that is also stored in S3, such that all reads of data may beserviced by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n withoutrequiring the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n to accessthe cloud-based object storage 348. Readers will appreciate that inother embodiments, however, all data that is stored by the cloud-basedstorage system 318 may be stored in the cloud-based object storage 348,but less than all data that is stored by the cloud-based storage system318 may be stored in at least one of the local storage 330, 334, 338resources or block-storage 342, 344, 346 resources that are utilized bythe cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n. In such an example,various policies may be utilized to determine which subset of the datathat is stored by the cloud-based storage system 318 should reside inboth: 1) the cloud-based object storage 348, and 2) at least one of thelocal storage 330, 334, 338 resources or block-storage 342, 344, 346resources that are utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340b, 340 n.

As described above, when the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340n with local storage 330, 334, 338 are embodied as EC2 instances, thecloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330,334, 338 are only guaranteed to have a monthly uptime of 99.9% and datastored in the local instance store only persists during the lifetime ofeach cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage330, 334, 338. As such, one or more modules of computer programinstructions that are executing within the cloud-based storage system318 (e.g., a monitoring module that is executing on its own EC2instance) may be designed to handle the failure of one or more of thecloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330,334, 338. In such an example, the monitoring module may handle thefailure of one or more of the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b,340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 by creating one or more new cloudcomputing instances with local storage, retrieving data that was storedon the failed cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n from thecloud-based object storage 348, and storing the data retrieved from thecloud-based object storage 348 in local storage on the newly createdcloud computing instances. Readers will appreciate that many variants ofthis process may be implemented.

Consider an example in which all cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b,340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 failed. In such an example, themonitoring module may create new cloud computing instances with localstorage, where high-bandwidth instances types are selected that allowfor the maximum data transfer rates between the newly createdhigh-bandwidth cloud computing instances with local storage and thecloud-based object storage 348. Readers will appreciate that instancestypes are selected that allow for the maximum data transfer ratesbetween the new cloud computing instances and the cloud-based objectstorage 348 such that the new high-bandwidth cloud computing instancescan be rehydrated with data from the cloud-based object storage 348 asquickly as possible. Once the new high-bandwidth cloud computinginstances are rehydrated with data from the cloud-based object storage348, less expensive lower-bandwidth cloud computing instances may becreated, data may be migrated to the less expensive lower-bandwidthcloud computing instances, and the high-bandwidth cloud computinginstances may be terminated.

Readers will appreciate that in some embodiments, the number of newcloud computing instances that are created may substantially exceed thenumber of cloud computing instances that are needed to locally store allof the data stored by the cloud-based storage system 318. The number ofnew cloud computing instances that are created may substantially exceedthe number of cloud computing instances that are needed to locally storeall of the data stored by the cloud-based storage system 318 in order tomore rapidly pull data from the cloud-based object storage 348 and intothe new cloud computing instances, as each new cloud computing instancecan (in parallel) retrieve some portion of the data stored by thecloud-based storage system 318. In such embodiments, once the datastored by the cloud-based storage system 318 has been pulled into thenewly created cloud computing instances, the data may be consolidatedwithin a subset of the newly created cloud computing instances and thosenewly created cloud computing instances that are excessive may beterminated.

Consider an example in which 1000 cloud computing instances are neededin order to locally store all valid data that users of the cloud-basedstorage system 318 have written to the cloud-based storage system 318.In such an example, assume that all 1,000 cloud computing instancesfail. In such an example, the monitoring module may cause 100,000 cloudcomputing instances to be created, where each cloud computing instanceis responsible for retrieving, from the cloud-based object storage 348,distinct 1/100,000th chunks of the valid data that users of thecloud-based storage system 318 have written to the cloud-based storagesystem 318 and locally storing the distinct chunk of the dataset that itretrieved. In such an example, because each of the 100,000 cloudcomputing instances can retrieve data from the cloud-based objectstorage 348 in parallel, the caching layer may be restored 100 timesfaster as compared to an embodiment where the monitoring module onlycreate 1000 replacement cloud computing instances. In such an example,over time the data that is stored locally in the 100,000 could beconsolidated into 1,000 cloud computing instances and the remaining99,000 cloud computing instances could be terminated.

Readers will appreciate that various performance aspects of thecloud-based storage system 318 may be monitored (e.g., by a monitoringmodule that is executing in an EC2 instance) such that the cloud-basedstorage system 318 can be scaled-up or scaled-out as needed. Consider anexample in which the monitoring module monitors the performance of thecould-based storage system 318 via communications with one or more ofthe cloud computing instances 320, 322 that each are used to support theexecution of a storage controller application 324, 326, via monitoringcommunications between cloud computing instances 320, 322, 340 a, 340 b,340 n, via monitoring communications between cloud computing instances320, 322, 340 a, 340 b, 340 n and the cloud-based object storage 348, orin some other way. In such an example, assume that the monitoring moduledetermines that the cloud computing instances 320, 322 that are used tosupport the execution of a storage controller application 324, 326 areundersized and not sufficiently servicing the I/O requests that areissued by users of the cloud-based storage system 318. In such anexample, the monitoring module may create a new, more powerful cloudcomputing instance (e.g., a cloud computing instance of a type thatincludes more processing power, more memory, etc.) that includes thestorage controller application such that the new, more powerful cloudcomputing instance can begin operating as the primary controller.Likewise, if the monitoring module determines that the cloud computinginstances 320, 322 that are used to support the execution of a storagecontroller application 324, 326 are oversized and that cost savingscould be gained by switching to a smaller, less powerful cloud computinginstance, the monitoring module may create a new, less powerful (andless expensive) cloud computing instance that includes the storagecontroller application such that the new, less powerful cloud computinginstance can begin operating as the primary controller.

Consider, as an additional example of dynamically sizing the cloud-basedstorage system 318, an example in which the monitoring module determinesthat the utilization of the local storage that is collectively providedby the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n has reached apredetermined utilization threshold (e.g., 95%). In such an example, themonitoring module may create additional cloud computing instances withlocal storage to expand the pool of local storage that is offered by thecloud computing instances. Alternatively, the monitoring module maycreate one or more new cloud computing instances that have largeramounts of local storage than the already existing cloud computinginstances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n, such that data stored in an alreadyexisting cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n can be migrated tothe one or more new cloud computing instances and the already existingcloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n can be terminated, therebyexpanding the pool of local storage that is offered by the cloudcomputing instances. Likewise, if the pool of local storage that isoffered by the cloud computing instances is unnecessarily large, datacan be consolidated and some cloud computing instances can beterminated.

Readers will appreciate that the cloud-based storage system 318 may besized up and down automatically by a monitoring module applying apredetermined set of rules that may be relatively simple of relativelycomplicated. In fact, the monitoring module may not only take intoaccount the current state of the cloud-based storage system 318, but themonitoring module may also apply predictive policies that are based on,for example, observed behavior (e.g., every night from 10 PM until 6 AMusage of the storage system is relatively light), predeterminedfingerprints (e.g., every time a virtual desktop infrastructure adds 100virtual desktops, the number of IOPS directed to the storage systemincrease by X), and so on. In such an example, the dynamic scaling ofthe cloud-based storage system 318 may be based on current performancemetrics, predicted workloads, and many other factors, includingcombinations thereof.

Readers will further appreciate that because the cloud-based storagesystem 318 may be dynamically scaled, the cloud-based storage system 318may even operate in a way that is more dynamic. Consider the example ofgarbage collection. In a traditional storage system, the amount ofstorage is fixed. As such, at some point the storage system may beforced to perform garbage collection as the amount of available storagehas become so constrained that the storage system is on the verge ofrunning out of storage. In contrast, the cloud-based storage system 318described here can always ‘add’ additional storage (e.g., by adding morecloud computing instances with local storage). Because the cloud-basedstorage system 318 described here can always ‘add’ additional storage,the cloud-based storage system 318 can make more intelligent decisionsregarding when to perform garbage collection. For example, thecloud-based storage system 318 may implement a policy that garbagecollection only be performed when the number of IOPS being serviced bythe cloud-based storage system 318 falls below a certain level. In someembodiments, other system-level functions (e.g., deduplication,compression) may also be turned off and on in response to system load,given that the size of the cloud-based storage system 318 is notconstrained in the same way that traditional storage systems areconstrained.

Readers will appreciate that embodiments of the present disclosureresolve an issue with block-storage services offered by some cloudcomputing environments as some cloud computing environments only allowfor one cloud computing instance to connect to a block-storage volume ata single time. For example, in Amazon AWS, only a single EC2 instancemay be connected to an EBS volume. Through the use of EC2 instances withlocal storage, embodiments of the present disclosure can offermulti-connect capabilities where multiple EC2 instances can connect toanother EC2 instance with local storage (‘a drive instance’). In suchembodiments, the drive instances may include software executing withinthe drive instance that allows the drive instance to support I/Odirected to a particular volume from each connected EC2 instance. Assuch, some embodiments of the present disclosure may be embodied asmulti-connect block storage services that may not include all of thecomponents depicted in FIG. 3C.

In some embodiments, especially in embodiments where the cloud-basedobject storage 348 resources are embodied as Amazon S3, the cloud-basedstorage system 318 may include one or more modules (e.g., a module ofcomputer program instructions executing on an EC2 instance) that areconfigured to ensure that when the local storage of a particular cloudcomputing instance is rehydrated with data from S3, the appropriate datais actually in S3. This issue arises largely because S3 implements aneventual consistency model where, when overwriting an existing object,reads of the object will eventually (but not necessarily immediately)become consistent and will eventually (but not necessarily immediately)return the overwritten version of the object. To address this issue, insome embodiments of the present disclosure, objects in S3 are neveroverwritten. Instead, a traditional ‘overwrite’ would result in thecreation of the new object (that includes the updated version of thedata) and the eventual deletion of the old object (that includes theprevious version of the data).

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, as part of an attempt tonever (or almost never) overwrite an object, when data is written to S3the resultant object may be tagged with a sequence number. In someembodiments, these sequence numbers may be persisted elsewhere (e.g., ina database) such that at any point in time, the sequence numberassociated with the most up-to-date version of some piece of data can beknown. In such a way, a determination can be made as to whether S3 hasthe most recent version of some piece of data by merely reading thesequence number associated with an object—and without actually readingthe data from S3. The ability to make this determination may beparticularly important when a cloud computing instance with localstorage crashes, as it would be undesirable to rehydrate the localstorage of a replacement cloud computing instance with out-of-date data.In fact, because the cloud-based storage system 318 does not need toaccess the data to verify its validity, the data can stay encrypted andaccess charges can be avoided.

The storage systems described above may carry out intelligent databackup techniques through which data stored in the storage system may becopied and stored in a distinct location to avoid data loss in the eventof equipment failure or some other form of catastrophe. For example, thestorage systems described above may be configured to examine each backupto avoid restoring the storage system to an undesirable state. Consideran example in which malware infects the storage system. In such anexample, the storage system may include software resources 314 that canscan each backup to identify backups that were captured before themalware infected the storage system and those backups that were capturedafter the malware infected the storage system. In such an example, thestorage system may restore itself from a backup that does not includethe malware—or at least not restore the portions of a backup thatcontained the malware. In such an example, the storage system mayinclude software resources 314 that can scan each backup to identify thepresences of malware (or a virus, or some other undesirable), forexample, by identifying write operations that were serviced by thestorage system and originated from a network subnet that is suspected tohave delivered the malware, by identifying write operations that wereserviced by the storage system and originated from a user that issuspected to have delivered the malware, by identifying write operationsthat were serviced by the storage system and examining the content ofthe write operation against fingerprints of the malware, and in manyother ways.

Readers will further appreciate that the backups (often in the form ofone or more snapshots) may also be utilized to perform rapid recovery ofthe storage system. Consider an example in which the storage system isinfected with ransomware that locks users out of the storage system. Insuch an example, software resources 314 within the storage system may beconfigured to detect the presence of ransomware and may be furtherconfigured to restore the storage system to a point-in-time, using theretained backups, prior to the point-in-time at which the ransomwareinfected the storage system. In such an example, the presence ofransomware may be explicitly detected through the use of software toolsutilized by the system, through the use of a key (e.g., a USB drive)that is inserted into the storage system, or in a similar way. Likewise,the presence of ransomware may be inferred in response to systemactivity meeting a predetermined fingerprint such as, for example, noreads or writes coming into the system for a predetermined period oftime.

Readers will appreciate that the various components described above maybe grouped into one or more optimized computing packages as convergedinfrastructures. Such converged infrastructures may include pools ofcomputers, storage and networking resources that can be shared bymultiple applications and managed in a collective manner usingpolicy-driven processes. Such converged infrastructures may beimplemented with a converged infrastructure reference architecture, withstandalone appliances, with a software driven hyper-converged approach(e.g., hyper-converged infrastructures), or in other ways.

Readers will appreciate that the storage systems described above may beuseful for supporting various types of software applications. Forexample, the storage system 306 may be useful in supporting artificialintelligence (‘AI’) applications, database applications, DevOpsprojects, electronic design automation tools, event-driven softwareapplications, high performance computing applications, simulationapplications, high-speed data capture and analysis applications, machinelearning applications, media production applications, media servingapplications, picture archiving and communication systems (‘PACS’)applications, software development applications, virtual realityapplications, augmented reality applications, and many other types ofapplications by providing storage resources to such applications.

The storage systems described above may operate to support a widevariety of applications. In view of the fact that the storage systemsinclude compute resources, storage resources, and a wide variety ofother resources, the storage systems may be well suited to supportapplications that are resource intensive such as, for example, AIapplications. AI applications may be deployed in a variety of fields,including: predictive maintenance in manufacturing and related fields,healthcare applications such as patient data & risk analytics, retailand marketing deployments (e.g., search advertising, social mediaadvertising), supply chains solutions, fintech solutions such asbusiness analytics & reporting tools, operational deployments such asreal-time analytics tools, application performance management tools, ITinfrastructure management tools, and many others.

Such AI applications may enable devices to perceive their environmentand take actions that maximize their chance of success at some goal.Examples of such AI applications can include IBM Watson, MicrosoftOxford, Google DeepMind, Baidu Minwa, and others. The storage systemsdescribed above may also be well suited to support other types ofapplications that are resource intensive such as, for example, machinelearning applications. Machine learning applications may perform varioustypes of data analysis to automate analytical model building. Usingalgorithms that iteratively learn from data, machine learningapplications can enable computers to learn without being explicitlyprogrammed. One particular area of machine learning is referred to asreinforcement learning, which involves taking suitable actions tomaximize reward in a particular situation. Reinforcement learning may beemployed to find the best possible behavior or path that a particularsoftware application or machine should take in a specific situation.Reinforcement learning differs from other areas of machine learning(e.g., supervised learning, unsupervised learning) in that correctinput/output pairs need not be presented for reinforcement learning andsub-optimal actions need not be explicitly corrected.

In addition to the resources already described, the storage systemsdescribed above may also include graphics processing units (‘GPUs’),occasionally referred to as visual processing unit (‘VPUs’). Such GPUsmay be embodied as specialized electronic circuits that rapidlymanipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in aframe buffer intended for output to a display device. Such GPUs may beincluded within any of the computing devices that are part of thestorage systems described above, including as one of many individuallyscalable components of a storage system, where other examples ofindividually scalable components of such storage system can includestorage components, memory components, compute components (e.g., CPUs,FPGAs, ASICs), networking components, software components, and others.In addition to GPUs, the storage systems described above may alsoinclude neural network processors (‘NNPs’) for use in various aspects ofneural network processing. Such NNPs may be used in place of (or inaddition to) GPUs and may be also be independently scalable.

As described above, the storage systems described herein may beconfigured to support artificial intelligence applications, machinelearning applications, big data analytics applications, and many othertypes of applications. The rapid growth in these sort of applications isbeing driven by three technologies: deep learning (DL), GPU processors,and Big Data. Deep learning is a computing model that makes use ofmassively parallel neural networks inspired by the human brain. Insteadof experts handcrafting software, a deep learning model writes its ownsoftware by learning from lots of examples. Such GPUs may includethousands of cores that are well-suited to run algorithms that looselyrepresent the parallel nature of the human brain.

Advances in deep neural networks have ignited a new wave of algorithmsand tools for data scientists to tap into their data with artificialintelligence (AI). With improved algorithms, larger data sets, andvarious frameworks (including open-source software libraries for machinelearning across a range of tasks), data scientists are tackling new usecases like autonomous driving vehicles, natural language processing andunderstanding, computer vision, machine reasoning, strong AI, and manyothers. Applications of such techniques may include: machine andvehicular object detection, identification and avoidance; visualrecognition, classification and tagging; algorithmic financial tradingstrategy performance management; simultaneous localization and mapping;predictive maintenance of high-value machinery; prevention against cybersecurity threats, expertise automation; image recognition andclassification; question answering; robotics; text analytics(extraction, classification) and text generation and translation; andmany others. Applications of AI techniques has materialized in a widearray of products include, for example, Amazon Echo's speech recognitiontechnology that allows users to talk to their machines, GoogleTranslate™ which allows for machine-based language translation,Spotify's Discover Weekly that provides recommendations on new songs andartists that a user may like based on the user's usage and trafficanalysis, Quill's text generation offering that takes structured dataand turns it into narrative stories, Chatbots that provide real-time,contextually specific answers to questions in a dialog format, and manyothers.

Data is the heart of modern AI and deep learning algorithms. Beforetraining can begin, one problem that must be addressed revolves aroundcollecting the labeled data that is crucial for training an accurate AImodel. A full scale AI deployment may be required to continuouslycollect, clean, transform, label, and store large amounts of data.Adding additional high quality data points directly translates to moreaccurate models and better insights. Data samples may undergo a seriesof processing steps including, but not limited to: 1) ingesting the datafrom an external source into the training system and storing the data inraw form, 2) cleaning and transforming the data in a format convenientfor training, including linking data samples to the appropriate label,3) exploring parameters and models, quickly testing with a smallerdataset, and iterating to converge on the most promising models to pushinto the production cluster, 4) executing training phases to selectrandom batches of input data, including both new and older samples, andfeeding those into production GPU servers for computation to updatemodel parameters, and 5) evaluating including using a holdback portionof the data not used in training in order to evaluate model accuracy onthe holdout data. This lifecycle may apply for any type of parallelizedmachine learning, not just neural networks or deep learning. Forexample, standard machine learning frameworks may rely on CPUs insteadof GPUs but the data ingest and training workflows may be the same.Readers will appreciate that a single shared storage data hub creates acoordination point throughout the lifecycle without the need for extradata copies among the ingest, preprocessing, and training stages. Rarelyis the ingested data used for only one purpose, and shared storage givesthe flexibility to train multiple different models or apply traditionalanalytics to the data.

Readers will appreciate that each stage in the AI data pipeline may havevarying requirements from the data hub (e.g., the storage system orcollection of storage systems). Scale-out storage systems must deliveruncompromising performance for all manner of access types andpatterns—from small, metadata-heavy to large files, from random tosequential access patterns, and from low to high concurrency. Thestorage systems described above may serve as an ideal AI data hub as thesystems may service unstructured workloads. In the first stage, data isideally ingested and stored on to the same data hub that followingstages will use, in order to avoid excess data copying. The next twosteps can be done on a standard compute server that optionally includesa GPU, and then in the fourth and last stage, full training productionjobs are run on powerful GPU-accelerated servers. Often, there is aproduction pipeline alongside an experimental pipeline operating on thesame dataset. Further, the GPU-accelerated servers can be usedindependently for different models or joined together to train on onelarger model, even spanning multiple systems for distributed training.If the shared storage tier is slow, then data must be copied to localstorage for each phase, resulting in wasted time staging data ontodifferent servers. The ideal data hub for the AI training pipelinedelivers performance similar to data stored locally on the server nodewhile also having the simplicity and performance to enable all pipelinestages to operate concurrently.

Although the preceding paragraphs discuss deep learning applications,readers will appreciate that the storage systems described herein mayalso be part of a distributed deep learning (‘DDL’) platform to supportthe execution of DDL algorithms. The storage systems described above mayalso be paired with other technologies such as TensorFlow, anopen-source software library for dataflow programming across a range oftasks that may be used for machine learning applications such as neuralnetworks, to facilitate the development of such machine learning models,applications, and so on.

The storage systems described above may also be used in a neuromorphiccomputing environment. Neuromorphic computing is a form of computingthat mimics brain cells. To support neuromorphic computing, anarchitecture of interconnected “neurons” replace traditional computingmodels with low-powered signals that go directly between neurons formore efficient computation. Neuromorphic computing may make use ofvery-large-scale integration (VLSI) systems containing electronic analogcircuits to mimic neuro-biological architectures present in the nervoussystem, as well as analog, digital, mixed-mode analog/digital VLSI, andsoftware systems that implement models of neural systems for perception,motor control, or multisensory integration.

Readers will appreciate that the storage systems described above may beconfigured to support the storage or use of (among other types of data)blockchains. In addition to supporting the storage and use of blockchaintechnologies, the storage systems described above may also support thestorage and use of derivative items such as, for example, open sourceblockchains and related tools that are part of the IBM™ Hyperledgerproject, permissioned blockchains in which a certain number of trustedparties are allowed to access the block chain, blockchain products thatenable developers to build their own distributed ledger projects, andothers. Blockchains and the storage systems described herein may beleveraged to support on-chain storage of data as well as off-chainstorage of data.

Off-chain storage of data can be implemented in a variety of ways andcan occur when the data itself is not stored within the blockchain. Forexample, in one embodiment, a hash function may be utilized and the dataitself may be fed into the hash function to generate a hash value. Insuch an example, the hashes of large pieces of data may be embeddedwithin transactions, instead of the data itself. Readers will appreciatethat, in other embodiments, alternatives to blockchains may be used tofacilitate the decentralized storage of information. For example, onealternative to a blockchain that may be used is a blockweave. Whileconventional blockchains store every transaction to achieve validation,a blockweave permits secure decentralization without the usage of theentire chain, thereby enabling low cost on-chain storage of data. Suchblockweaves may utilize a consensus mechanism that is based on proof ofaccess (PoA) and proof of work (PoW).

The storage systems described above may, either alone or in combinationwith other computing devices, be used to support in-memory computingapplications. In-memory computing involves the storage of information inRAM that is distributed across a cluster of computers. Readers willappreciate that the storage systems described above, especially thosethat are configurable with customizable amounts of processing resources,storage resources, and memory resources (e.g., those systems in whichblades that contain configurable amounts of each type of resource), maybe configured in a way so as to provide an infrastructure that cansupport in-memory computing. Likewise, the storage systems describedabove may include component parts (e.g., NVDIMMs, 3D crosspoint storagethat provide fast random access memory that is persistent) that canactually provide for an improved in-memory computing environment ascompared to in-memory computing environments that rely on RAMdistributed across dedicated servers.

In some embodiments, the storage systems described above may beconfigured to operate as a hybrid in-memory computing environment thatincludes a universal interface to all storage media (e.g., RAM, flashstorage, 3D crosspoint storage). In such embodiments, users may have noknowledge regarding the details of where their data is stored but theycan still use the same full, unified API to address data. In suchembodiments, the storage system may (in the background) move data to thefastest layer available—including intelligently placing the data independence upon various characteristics of the data or in dependenceupon some other heuristic. In such an example, the storage systems mayeven make use of existing products such as Apache Ignite and GridGain tomove data between the various storage layers, or the storage systems maymake use of custom software to move data between the various storagelayers. The storage systems described herein may implement variousoptimizations to improve the performance of in-memory computing such as,for example, having computations occur as close to the data as possible.

Readers will further appreciate that in some embodiments, the storagesystems described above may be paired with other resources to supportthe applications described above. For example, one infrastructure couldinclude primary compute in the form of servers and workstations whichspecialize in using General-purpose computing on graphics processingunits (‘GPGPU’) to accelerate deep learning applications that areinterconnected into a computation engine to train parameters for deepneural networks. Each system may have Ethernet external connectivity,InfiniBand external connectivity, some other form of externalconnectivity, or some combination thereof. In such an example, the GPUscan be grouped for a single large training or used independently totrain multiple models. The infrastructure could also include a storagesystem such as those described above to provide, for example, ascale-out all-flash file or object store through which data can beaccessed via high-performance protocols such as NFS, S3, and so on. Theinfrastructure can also include, for example, redundant top-of-rackEthernet switches connected to storage and compute via ports in MLAGport channels for redundancy. The infrastructure could also includeadditional compute in the form of whitebox servers, optionally withGPUs, for data ingestion, pre-processing, and model debugging. Readerswill appreciate that additional infrastructures are also be possible.

Readers will appreciate that the storage systems described above, eitheralone or in coordination with other computing machinery may beconfigured to support other AI related tools. For example, the storagesystems may make use of tools like ONXX or other open neural networkexchange formats that make it easier to transfer models written indifferent AI frameworks. Likewise, the storage systems may be configuredto support tools like Amazon's Gluon that allow developers to prototype,build, and train deep learning models. In fact, the storage systemsdescribed above may be part of a larger platform, such as IBM™ CloudPrivate for Data, that includes integrated data science, dataengineering and application building services.

Readers will further appreciate that the storage systems described abovemay also be deployed as an edge solution. Such an edge solution may bein place to optimize cloud computing systems by performing dataprocessing at the edge of the network, near the source of the data. Edgecomputing can push applications, data and computing power (i.e.,services) away from centralized points to the logical extremes of anetwork. Through the use of edge solutions such as the storage systemsdescribed above, computational tasks may be performed using the computeresources provided by such storage systems, data may be storage usingthe storage resources of the storage system, and cloud-based servicesmay be accessed through the use of various resources of the storagesystem (including networking resources). By performing computationaltasks on the edge solution, storing data on the edge solution, andgenerally making use of the edge solution, the consumption of expensivecloud-based resources may be avoided and, in fact, performanceimprovements may be experienced relative to a heavier reliance oncloud-based resources.

While many tasks may benefit from the utilization of an edge solution,some particular uses may be especially suited for deployment in such anenvironment. For example, devices like drones, autonomous cars, robots,and others may require extremely rapid processing—so fast, in fact, thatsending data up to a cloud environment and back to receive dataprocessing support may simply be too slow. As an additional example,some IoT devices such as connected video cameras may not be well-suitedfor the utilization of cloud-based resources as it may be impractical(not only from a privacy perspective, security perspective, or afinancial perspective) to send the data to the cloud simply because ofthe pure volume of data that is involved. As such, many tasks thatreally on data processing, storage, or communications may be bettersuited by platforms that include edge solutions such as the storagesystems described above.

The storage systems described above may alone, or in combination withother computing resources, serves as a network edge platform thatcombines compute resources, storage resources, networking resources,cloud technologies and network virtualization technologies, and so on.As part of the network, the edge may take on characteristics similar toother network facilities, from the customer premise and backhaulaggregation facilities to Points of Presence (PoPs) and regional datacenters. Readers will appreciate that network workloads, such as VirtualNetwork Functions (VNFs) and others, will reside on the network edgeplatform. Enabled by a combination of containers and virtual machines,the network edge platform may rely on controllers and schedulers thatare no longer geographically co-located with the data processingresources. The functions, as microservices, may split into controlplanes, user and data planes, or even state machines, allowing forindependent optimization and scaling techniques to be applied. Such userand data planes may be enabled through increased accelerators, boththose residing in server platforms, such as FPGAs and Smart NICs, andthrough SDN-enabled merchant silicon and programmable ASICs.

The storage systems described above may also be optimized for use in bigdata analytics. Big data analytics may be generally described as theprocess of examining large and varied data sets to uncover hiddenpatterns, unknown correlations, market trends, customer preferences andother useful information that can help organizations make more-informedbusiness decisions. As part of that process, semi-structured andunstructured data such as, for example, internet clickstream data, webserver logs, social media content, text from customer emails and surveyresponses, mobile-phone call-detail records, IoT sensor data, and otherdata may be converted to a structured form.

The storage systems described above may also support (includingimplementing as a system interface) applications that perform tasks inresponse to human speech. For example, the storage systems may supportthe execution intelligent personal assistant applications such as, forexample, Amazon's Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Voice, Samsung Bixby,Microsoft Cortana, and others. While the examples described in theprevious sentence make use of voice as input, the storage systemsdescribed above may also support chatbots, talkbots, chatterbots, orartificial conversational entities or other applications that areconfigured to conduct a conversation via auditory or textual methods.Likewise, the storage system may actually execute such an application toenable a user such as a system administrator to interact with thestorage system via speech. Such applications are generally capable ofvoice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms,streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic,and other real time information, such as news, although in embodimentsin accordance with the present disclosure, such applications may beutilized as interfaces to various system management operations.

The storage systems described above may also implement AI platforms fordelivering on the vision of self-driving storage. Such AI platforms maybe configured to deliver global predictive intelligence by collectingand analyzing large amounts of storage system telemetry data points toenable effortless management, analytics and support. In fact, suchstorage systems may be capable of predicting both capacity andperformance, as well as generating intelligent advice on workloaddeployment, interaction and optimization. Such AI platforms may beconfigured to scan all incoming storage system telemetry data against alibrary of issue fingerprints to predict and resolve incidents inreal-time, before they impact customer environments, and captureshundreds of variables related to performance that are used to forecastperformance load.

The storage systems described above may support the serialized orsimultaneous execution of artificial intelligence applications, machinelearning applications, data analytics applications, datatransformations, and other tasks that collectively may form an AIladder. Such an AI ladder may effectively be formed by combining suchelements to form a complete data science pipeline, where existdependencies between elements of the AI ladder. For example, AI mayrequire that some form of machine learning has taken place, machinelearning may require that some form of analytics has taken place,analytics may require that some form of data and informationarchitecting has taken place, and so on. As such, each element may beviewed as a rung in an AI ladder that collectively can form a completeand sophisticated AI solution.

The storage systems described above may also, either alone or incombination with other computing environments, be used to deliver an AIeverywhere experience where AI permeates wide and expansive aspects ofbusiness and life. For example, AI may play an important role in thedelivery of deep learning solutions, deep reinforcement learningsolutions, artificial general intelligence solutions, autonomousvehicles, cognitive computing solutions, commercial UAVs or drones,conversational user interfaces, enterprise taxonomies, ontologymanagement solutions, machine learning solutions, smart dust, smartrobots, smart workplaces, and many others.

The storage systems described above may also, either alone or incombination with other computing environments, be used to deliver a widerange of transparently immersive experiences (including those that usedigital twins of various “things” such as people, places, processes,systems, and so on) where technology can introduce transparency betweenpeople, businesses, and things. Such transparently immersive experiencesmay be delivered as augmented reality technologies, connected homes,virtual reality technologies, brain-computer interfaces, humanaugmentation technologies, nanotube electronics, volumetric displays, 4Dprinting technologies, or others.

The storage systems described above may also, either alone or incombination with other computing environments, be used to support a widevariety of digital platforms. Such digital platforms can include, forexample, 5G wireless systems and platforms, digital twin platforms, edgecomputing platforms, IoT platforms, quantum computing platforms,serverless PaaS, software-defined security, neuromorphic computingplatforms, and so on.

The storage systems described above may also be part of a multi-cloudenvironment in which multiple cloud computing and storage services aredeployed in a single heterogeneous architecture. In order to facilitatethe operation of such a multi-cloud environment, DevOps tools may bedeployed to enable orchestration across clouds. Likewise, continuousdevelopment and continuous integration tools may be deployed tostandardize processes around continuous integration and delivery, newfeature rollout and provisioning cloud workloads. By standardizing theseprocesses, a multi-cloud strategy may be implemented that enables theutilization of the best provider for each workload.

The storage systems described above may be used as a part of a platformto enable the use of crypto-anchors that may be used to authenticate aproduct's origins and contents to ensure that it matches a blockchainrecord associated with the product. Similarly, as part of a suite oftools to secure data stored on the storage system, the storage systemsdescribed above may implement various encryption technologies andschemes, including lattice cryptography. Lattice cryptography caninvolve constructions of cryptographic primitives that involve lattices,either in the construction itself or in the security proof. Unlikepublic-key schemes such as the RSA, Diffie-Hellman or Elliptic-Curvecryptosystems, which are easily attacked by a quantum computer, somelattice-based constructions appear to be resistant to attack by bothclassical and quantum computers.

A quantum computer is a device that performs quantum computing. Quantumcomputing is computing using quantum-mechanical phenomena, such assuperposition and entanglement. Quantum computers differ fromtraditional computers that are based on transistors, as such traditionalcomputers require that data be encoded into binary digits (bits), eachof which is always in one of two definite states (0 or 1). In contrastto traditional computers, quantum computers use quantum bits, which canbe in superpositions of states. A quantum computer maintains a sequenceof qubits, where a single qubit can represent a one, a zero, or anyquantum superposition of those two qubit states. A pair of qubits can bein any quantum superposition of 4 states, and three qubits in anysuperposition of 8 states. A quantum computer with n qubits cangenerally be in an arbitrary superposition of up to 2{circumflex over( )}n different states simultaneously, whereas a traditional computercan only be in one of these states at any one time. A quantum Turingmachine is a theoretical model of such a computer.

The storage systems described above may also be paired withFPGA-accelerated servers as part of a larger AI or ML infrastructure.Such FPGA-accelerated servers may reside near (e.g., in the same datacenter) the storage systems described above or even incorporated into anappliance that includes one or more storage systems, one or moreFPGA-accelerated servers, networking infrastructure that supportscommunications between the one or more storage systems and the one ormore FPGA-accelerated servers, as well as other hardware and softwarecomponents. Alternatively, FPGA-accelerated servers may reside within acloud computing environment that may be used to perform compute-relatedtasks for AI and ML jobs. Any of the embodiments described above may beused to collectively serve as a FPGA-based AI or ML platform. Readerswill appreciate that, in some embodiments of the FPGA-based AI or MLplatform, the FPGAs that are contained within the FPGA-acceleratedservers may be reconfigured for different types of ML models (e.g.,LSTMs, CNNs, GRUs). The ability to reconfigure the FPGAs that arecontained within the FPGA-accelerated servers may enable theacceleration of a ML or AI application based on the most optimalnumerical precision and memory model being used. Readers will appreciatethat by treating the collection of FPGA-accelerated servers as a pool ofFPGAs, any CPU in the data center may utilize the pool of FPGAs as ashared hardware microservice, rather than limiting a server to dedicatedaccelerators plugged into it.

The FPGA-accelerated servers and the GPU-accelerated servers describedabove may implement a model of computing where, rather than keeping asmall amount of data in a CPU and running a long stream of instructionsover it as occurred in more traditional computing models, the machinelearning model and parameters are pinned into the high-bandwidth on-chipmemory with lots of data streaming though the high-bandwidth on-chipmemory. FPGAs may even be more efficient than GPUs for this computingmodel, as the FPGAs can be programmed with only the instructions neededto run this kind of computing model.

The storage systems described above may be configured to provideparallel storage, for example, through the use of a parallel file systemsuch as BeeGFS. Such parallel files systems may include a distributedmetadata architecture. For example, the parallel file system may includea plurality of metadata servers across which metadata is distributed, aswell as components that include services for clients and storageservers.

The systems described above can support the execution of a wide array ofsoftware applications. Such software applications can be deployed in avariety of ways, including container-based deployment models.Containerized applications may be managed using a variety of tools. Forexample, containerized applications may be managed using Docker Swarm,Kubernetes, and others. Containerized applications may be used tofacilitate a serverless, cloud native computing deployment andmanagement model for software applications. In support of a serverless,cloud native computing deployment and management model for softwareapplications, containers may be used as part of an event handlingmechanisms (e.g., AWS Lambdas) such that various events cause acontainerized application to be spun up to operate as an event handler.

The systems described above may be deployed in a variety of ways,including being deployed in ways that support fifth generation (‘5G’)networks. 5G networks may support substantially faster datacommunications than previous generations of mobile communicationsnetworks and, as a consequence may lead to the disaggregation of dataand computing resources as modern massive data centers may become lessprominent and may be replaced, for example, by more-local, micro datacenters that are close to the mobile-network towers. The systemsdescribed above may be included in such local, micro data centers andmay be part of or paired to multi-access edge computing (‘MEC’) systems.Such MEC systems may enable cloud computing capabilities and an ITservice environment at the edge of the cellular network. By runningapplications and performing related processing tasks closer to thecellular customer, network congestion may be reduced and applicationsmay perform better.

In some examples, a non-transitory computer-readable medium storingcomputer-readable instructions may be provided in accordance with theprinciples described herein. The instructions, when executed by aprocessor of a computing device, may direct the processor and/orcomputing device to perform one or more operations, including one ormore of the operations described herein. Such instructions may be storedand/or transmitted using any of a variety of known computer-readablemedia.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium as referred to herein mayinclude any non-transitory storage medium that participates in providingdata (e.g., instructions) that may be read and/or executed by acomputing device (e.g., by a processor of a computing device). Forexample, a non-transitory computer-readable medium may include, but isnot limited to, any combination of non-volatile storage media and/orvolatile storage media. Exemplary non-volatile storage media include,but are not limited to, read-only memory, flash memory, a solid-statedrive, a magnetic storage device (e.g. a hard disk, a floppy disk,magnetic tape, etc.), ferroelectric random-access memory (“RAM”), and anoptical disc (e.g., a compact disc, a digital video disc, a Blu-raydisc, etc.). Exemplary volatile storage media include, but are notlimited to, RAM (e.g., dynamic RAM).

FIG. 3D illustrates an exemplary computing device 350 that may bespecifically configured to perform one or more of the processesdescribed herein. As shown in FIG. 3D, computing device 350 may includea communication interface 352, a processor 354, a storage device 356,and an input/output (“I/O”) module 358 communicatively connected one toanother via a communication infrastructure 360. While an exemplarycomputing device 350 is shown in FIG. 3D, the components illustrated inFIG. 3D are not intended to be limiting. Additional or alternativecomponents may be used in other embodiments. Components of computingdevice 350 shown in FIG. 3D will now be described in additional detail.

Communication interface 352 may be configured to communicate with one ormore computing devices. Examples of communication interface 352 include,without limitation, a wired network interface (such as a networkinterface card), a wireless network interface (such as a wirelessnetwork interface card), a modem, an audio/video connection, and anyother suitable interface.

Processor 354 generally represents any type or form of processing unitcapable of processing data and/or interpreting, executing, and/ordirecting execution of one or more of the instructions, processes,and/or operations described herein. Processor 354 may perform operationsby executing computer-executable instructions 362 (e.g., an application,software, code, and/or other executable data instance) stored in storagedevice 356.

Storage device 356 may include one or more data storage media, devices,or configurations and may employ any type, form, and combination of datastorage media and/or device. For example, storage device 356 mayinclude, but is not limited to, any combination of the non-volatilemedia and/or volatile media described herein. Electronic data, includingdata described herein, may be temporarily and/or permanently stored instorage device 356. For example, data representative ofcomputer-executable instructions 362 configured to direct processor 354to perform any of the operations described herein may be stored withinstorage device 356. In some examples, data may be arranged in one ormore databases residing within storage device 356.

I/O module 358 may include one or more I/O modules configured to receiveuser input and provide user output. I/O module 358 may include anyhardware, firmware, software, or combination thereof supportive of inputand output capabilities. For example, I/O module 358 may includehardware and/or software for capturing user input, including, but notlimited to, a keyboard or keypad, a touchscreen component (e.g.,touchscreen display), a receiver (e.g., an RF or infrared receiver),motion sensors, and/or one or more input buttons.

I/O module 358 may include one or more devices for presenting output toa user, including, but not limited to, a graphics engine, a display(e.g., a display screen), one or more output drivers (e.g., displaydrivers), one or more audio speakers, and one or more audio drivers. Incertain embodiments, I/O module 358 is configured to provide graphicaldata to a display for presentation to a user. The graphical data may berepresentative of one or more graphical user interfaces and/or any othergraphical content as may serve a particular implementation. In someexamples, any of the systems, computing devices, and/or other componentsdescribed herein may be implemented by computing device 350.

Advantages and features of the present disclosure can be furtherdescribed by the following statements.

1. A method comprising: determining, by a data protection system, thatdata stored by a storage system is under a possible attack; detecting,by the data protection system, a modify request with respect to thestorage system while the data stored by the storage system is under thepossible attack; determining, by the data protection system, that themodify request may be related to the possible attack; and performing, bythe data protection system in response to determining that the modifyrequest may be related to the possible attack, a remedial action withrespect to the modify request.

2. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein thedetermining that the modify request may be related to the possibleattack includes: identifying one or more attributes associated with themodify request; and determining that the modify request may be relatedto the possible attack based on the one or more attributes.

3. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the one ormore attributes associated with the modify request includes one or moreof a name of a data item associated with the modify request, a size ofthe data item, a format of the data item, a compressibility ratio of thedata item, a bit pattern of the data item, or a source of the modifyrequest.

4. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein thedetermining that the modify request may be related to the possibleattack based on the one or more attributes includes determining that anattribute associated with the modify request satisfies an attributethreshold.

5. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein thedetermining that the modify request may be related to the possibleattack based on the one or more attributes includes one or more of:determining that a source of the modify request is associated with anabnormal pattern; or determining that the source of the modify requesthas been previously associated with one or more security threats againstthe storage system.

6. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the performingthe remedial action with respect to the modify request includes one ormore of: blocking the modify request; or instructing the storage systemto block the modify request.

7. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the performingthe remedial action with respect to the modify request includes:identifying a source of the modify request; and instructing the storagesystem to block modifying access by the source to the storage system.

8. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:determining, by the data protection system, that the data stored by thestorage system is no longer under the possible attack; and performing,by the data protection system, an action in response to the determiningthat the data stored by the storage system is no longer under thepossible attack.

9. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the performingthe remedial action with respect to the modify request includes:instructing the storage system to redirect the modify request to aseparate storage structure that is separate from one or more activestorage structures of the storage system, the separate storage structurebeing within the storage system or within another storage system.

10. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming the remedial action with respect to the modify requestfurther includes: identifying a source of the modify request; andinstructing the storage system to redirect read requests from the sourceto the separate storage structure.

11. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:determining, by the data protection system, that the data stored by thestorage system is no longer under the possible attack; and performing,by the data protection system in response to determining that the datastored by the storage system is no longer under the possible attack, anaction with respect to data stored in the separate storage structure.

12. A system comprising: a memory storing instructions; a processorcommunicatively coupled to the memory and configured to execute theinstructions to: determine that data stored by a storage system is undera possible attack; detect a modify request with respect to the storagesystem while the data stored by the storage system is under the possibleattack; determine that the modify request may be related to the possibleattack; and perform, in response to determining that the modify requestmay be related to the possible attack, a remedial action with respect tothe modify request.

13. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein thedetermining that the modify request may be related to the possibleattack includes: identifying one or more attributes associated with themodify request; and determining that the modify request may be relatedto the possible attack based on the one or more attributes.

14. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the one ormore attributes associated with the modify request includes one or moreof a name of a data item associated with the modify request, a size ofthe data item, a format of the data item, a compressibility ratio of thedata item, a bit pattern of the data item, or a source of the modifyrequest.

15. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein thedetermining that the modify request may be related to the possibleattack based on the one or more attributes includes determining that anattribute associated with the modify request satisfies an attributethreshold.

16. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming the remedial action with respect to the modify requestincludes one or more of: blocking the modify request; or instructing thestorage system to block the modify request.

17. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming the remedial action with respect to the modify requestincludes: identifying a source of the modify request; and instructingthe storage system to block modifying access by the source to thestorage system.

18. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the processoris further configured to execute the instructions to: determine that thedata stored by the storage system is no longer under the possibleattack; and perform an action in response to the determining that thedata stored by the storage system is no longer under the possibleattack.

19. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming the remedial action with respect to the modify requestincludes: instructing the storage system to redirect the modify requestto a separate storage structure that is separate from one or more activestorage structures of the storage system, the separate storage structurebeing within the storage system or within another storage system;determining that the data stored by the storage system is no longerunder the possible attack; and performing, in response to determiningthat the data stored by the storage system is no longer under thepossible attack, an action with respect to data stored in the separatestorage structure.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that,when executed, direct a processor of a computing device to: determinethat data stored by a storage system is under a possible attack; detecta modify request with respect to the storage system while the datastored by the storage system is under the possible attack; determinethat the modify request may be related to the possible attack; andperform, in response to determining that the modify request may berelated to the possible attack, a remedial action with respect to themodify request.

1. A method comprising: determining, by a data protection system, that atotal amount of read traffic and write traffic processed by a storagesystem during a time period exceeds a threshold, the read trafficrepresenting data read from the storage system during the time periodand the write traffic representing data written to the storage systemduring the time period; determining, by the data protection system, thatthe write traffic is less compressible than the read traffic; anddetermining, by the data protection system based on the total amount ofread traffic and write traffic exceeding the threshold and on the writetraffic being less compressible than the read traffic, that the storagesystem is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

2. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:identifying, by the data protection system, an attribute associated withone or more of the data read from the storage system or the data writtento the storage system; wherein the determining that the storage systemis possibly being targeted by the security threat is further based onthe attribute.

3. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the attributecomprises one or more of: a host attribute associated with a hostassociated with the storage system, the data read from the storagesystem or the data written to the storage system being associated withthe host; an attribute of a source of the read traffic and the writetraffic; an attribute of a storage structure within the storage systemand from which the data is being read or to which the data is beingwritten; or a storage format attribute associated with a storage formatused by the storage system.

4. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:identifying, by the data protection system, a format type of a datainstance included in the data written to the storage system; anddetermining, by the data protection system, that a content of the datainstance does not match what would be expected to be received by thestorage system for the identified format type; wherein the determiningthat the storage system is possibly being targeted by the securitythreat is further based on the determination that the content of thedata instance does not match what would be expected to be received bythe storage system for the identified format type.

5. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:identifying, by the data protection system, a pattern associated withone or more of the read traffic or the write traffic; wherein thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat is further based on the pattern.

6. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:determining, by the data protection system, that the data written to thestorage system does not include identifiable header information or thatthe data written to the storage system includes header information thatdoes not match content included in the data written to the storagesystem; wherein the determining that the storage system is possiblybeing targeted by the security threat is further based on thedetermining that the data written to the storage system does not includethe identifiable header information or that the data written to thestorage system includes header information that does not match thecontent included in the data written to the storage system.

7. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:determining, by the data protection system, that the data read from thestorage system is at least partially compressed and includes theidentifiable header information; wherein the determining that thestorage system is possibly being targeted by the security threat isfurther based on the determining that the data read from the storagesystem is compressed and includes the identifiable header information.

8. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:determining, by the data protection system, that the data written to thestorage system includes data that is not decryptable with a keymaintained by an authorized key management system external to thestorage system; wherein the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat is further based on thedetermining that the data written to the storage system includes datathat is not decryptable with the key maintained by the key managementsystem.

9. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:determining, by the data protection system, that the data written to thestorage system does not include a correct cryptographic signatureassociated with an external data encryption service associated with thestorage system; wherein the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat is further based on thedetermining that the data written to the storage system does not includethe correct cryptographic signature.

10. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:determining, by the data protection system, that data already stored bythe storage system is deleted or overwritten by the data written to thestorage system; wherein the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat is further based on thedetermining that the data already stored by the storage system isdeleted or overwritten by the data written to the storage system.

11. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:accessing, by the data protection system, phone home data transmitted bythe storage system; and detecting, by the data protection system basedon the phone home data, an anomaly associated with the storage system;wherein the determining that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by the security threat is further based on the detectedanomaly.

12. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the detectingof the anomaly comprises determining that an overall compressibility ofdata stored by the storage system is below a historical norm associatedwith one or more of the storage system or a different storage system.

13. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:detecting, by the data protection system, a rate at which data is readfrom the storage system and written back to the storage system inencrypted form; wherein the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat is further based on thedetected rate.

14. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:inputting, by the data protection system, data representative of one ormore attributes of the read traffic, the write traffic, or the storagesystem into a machine learning model; wherein the determining that thestorage system is possibly being targeted by the security threat isfurther based on an output of the machine learning model.

15. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:determining, by the data protection system, an anomaly in a garbagecollection process performed by the storage system; wherein thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat is further based on the determining of the anomaly inthe garbage collection process.

16. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:identifying, by the data protection system, an attribute of anadditional storage system configured to replicate data stored by thestorage system; wherein the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat is further based on theattribute of the additional storage system.

17. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the thresholdrepresents one or more of a rate, an aggregate amount, or a differencecompared to a historical trend associated with the storage system.

18. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingperforming, by the data protection system in response to the determiningthat the storage system is possibly being targeted by the securitythreat, a remedial action with respect to the storage system.

19. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming of the remedial action comprises directing the storage systemto generate a recovery dataset for data stored by the storage system.

20. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming of the remedial action comprises further comprises directingthe storage system to transmit the recovery dataset to a remote storagesystem for storage by the remote storage system.

21. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein thetransmitting of the recovery dataset to the remote storage system isperformed using a network file system (NFS) protocol.

22. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming of the remedial action comprises notifying the remote storagesystem of the security threat.

23. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:determining, by the data protection system, that the storage system isactually not being targeted by the security threat; and directing, bythe data protection system in response to the determining that the hostdata is actually not being targeted by the security threat, the storagesystem to delete the recovery dataset.

24. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the recoverydataset comprises a snapshot of a storage structure within the storagesystem.

25. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingpreventing, by the data protection system, the recovery dataset frombeing deleted until one or more conditions are fulfilled.

26. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingdirecting, by the data protection system, the storage system to generaterecovery datasets over time in accordance with a data protectionparameter set, the recovery datasets usable to restore data maintainedby the storage system to a state corresponding to a selectable point intime.

27. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming of the remedial action comprises directing, in response tothe determining that the storage system is possibly being targeted bythe security threat, the storage system to use one or more of therecovery datasets to restore the data maintained by the storage systemto a state that corresponds to a point in time that precedes a point intime at which the data protection system determines that the storagesystem is possibly being targeted by the security threat.

28. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming of the remedial action further comprises modifying, inresponse to the determining that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by the security threat, the data protection parameter set forone or more of the recovery datasets.

29. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein: the dataprotection parameter set specifies a retention duration for the recoverydatasets, the retention duration defining a duration that each recoverydataset is saved before being deleted; and the modifying of the dataprotection parameter set comprises one or more of increasing theretention duration or suspending the retention duration so that at leastsome of the recovery datasets are not deleted without a specificinstruction provided by a source that manages the storage system.

30. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein: the dataprotection parameter set specifies a recovery dataset generationfrequency that defines a frequency at which the recovery datasets aregenerated; and the modifying of the data protection parameter setcomprises increasing the recovery dataset generation frequency.

31. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein: the dataprotection parameter set specifies a remote storage frequency thatdefines a frequency at which a subset of recovery datasets in therecovery datasets are transmitted to a remote storage system connectedto the storage system by way of a network; and the modifying of the dataprotection parameter set comprises modifying the remote storagefrequency.

32. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:maintaining, by the data protection system, configuration data for thestorage system; and determining, by the data protection system, that thestorage system is corrupted due to the security threat; wherein theperforming of the remedial action comprises using, in response to thedetermining that the storage system is corrupted, the configuration datato reconstruct a replacement storage system for the storage system.

33. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming of the remedial action comprises providing a notification ofthe security threat.

34. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming of the remedial action comprises restoring, by the dataprotection system based on one or more recovery datasets generated bythe storage system, data stored by the storage system to an uncorruptedstate.

35. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the one ormore recovery datasets comprise one or more of a recovery datasetgenerated prior to the determining that the storage system is possiblybeing targeted by the security threat or a recovery dataset generatedafter the determining that the storage system is possibly being targetedby the security threat.

36. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the recoverydataset generated prior to the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat comprises a provisionalransomware recovery structure that can only be deleted or modified inaccordance with one or more ransomware recovery parameters.

37. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the one ormore ransomware recovery parameters specify a number or type ofauthenticated entities that have to approve a deletion or modificationof the provisional ransomware recovery structure before the provisionalransomware recovery structure can be deleted or modified.

38. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the one ormore ransomware recovery parameters specify a retention duration beforewhich the provisional ransomware recovery structure can be deleted ormodified.

39. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the restoringis further based on a version of the data stored by the storage systemthat resides on a system other than the storage system.

40. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein: thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat constitutes a first threat detection process; and themethod further comprises performing, by the data protection system inresponse to performing the first threat detection process, a secondthreat detection process different than the first threat detectionprocess and configured to either confirm that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat with a higher confidencethreat detection than the first threat detection process or determinethat the storage system is not being targeted by the security threat.

41. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat comprises determining that there is a potential datacorruption in the storage system, and wherein the method furthercomprises: analyzing, by the data protection system in response to thedetecting of the potential data corruption, metrics of the storagesystem; and determining, by the data protection system based on theanalyzing of the metrics of the storage system, a corruption-freerecovery point for potential use to recover from the potential datacorruption.

42. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:determining, by the data protection system, that the read traffic iswithin a threshold amount of the write traffic during the time period;wherein the determining that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by the security threat is further based on the determining thatthe read traffic is within the threshold amount of the write trafficduring the time period.

43. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:identifying, by the data protection system, an attribute associated withone or more of the data read from the storage system or the data writtento the storage system; presenting, by the data protection system withina graphical user interface displayed by a display device, graphicalinformation associated with the attribute; and receiving, by the dataprotection system by way of the graphical user interface, user input;wherein the determining that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by the security threat is further based on the user input.

44. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingusing, by the data protection system, an unmanipulable clock sourceinternal to the storage system to track the time period.

45. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the dataprotection system is implemented by a controller within the storagesystem.

46. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the dataprotection system is implemented by a computing system communicativelycoupled to the storage system by way of a network.

47. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat comprises determining that ransomware is possibly on thestorage system (e.g., that a ransomware attack is possibly in progressor operation against the storage system).

48. A system comprising: a memory storing instructions; a processorcommunicatively coupled to the memory and configured to execute theinstructions to: determine that a total amount of read traffic and writetraffic processed by a storage system during a time period exceeds athreshold, the read traffic representing data read from the storagesystem during the time period and the write traffic representing datawritten to the storage system during the time period; determine that thewrite traffic is less compressible than the read traffic; and determine,based on the total amount of read traffic and write traffic exceedingthe threshold and on the write traffic being less compressible than theread traffic, that the storage system is possibly being targeted by asecurity threat.

49. The system of statement 48, implementing any of the methods recitedin the preceding statements.

50. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that,when executed, direct a processor of a computing device to: determinethat a total amount of read traffic and write traffic processed by astorage system during a time period exceeds a threshold, the readtraffic representing data read from the storage system during the timeperiod and the write traffic representing data written to the storagesystem during the time period; determine that the write traffic is lesscompressible than the read traffic; and determine, based on the totalamount of read traffic and write traffic exceeding the threshold and onthe write traffic being less compressible than the read traffic, thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

51. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of statement 50,implementing any of the methods recited in the preceding statements.

Additional advantages and features of the present disclosure can befurther described by the following statements.

1. A method comprising: performing, by a data protection system for astorage system, a first security threat detection process; determining,by the data protection system based on the performing of the firstsecurity threat detection process, that the storage system is possiblybeing targeted by a security threat; and performing, by the dataprotection system, a second security threat detection process, thesecond security threat detection process providing higher confidencethreat detection than the first security threat detection process.

2. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingconfirming, by the data protection system based on the performing of thesecond security threat detection process, that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat.

3. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:performing, by the data protection system based on the determining thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by the security threat, afirst remedial action with respect to the storage system; andperforming, by the data protection system based on the confirming thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by the security threat, asecond remedial action with respect to the storage system.

4. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the firstremedial action is different than the second remedial action.

5. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the firstremedial action or the second remedial action comprises one or more ofproviding a notification, generating a first recovery dataset,preventing a second recovery dataset from being deleted or modified,modifying a data protection parameter set for a third recovery dataset,or restoring data stored by the storage system to an uncorrupted state.

6. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingdetermining, by the data protection system based on the performing ofthe second security threat detection process, that the storage system isnot being targeted by the security threat.

7. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingreverting back, by the data protection system based on the determiningthat the storage system is not being targeted by the security threat, toperforming the first security threat detection process.

8. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingperforming, by the data protection system based on the determining thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by the security threat, aremedial action with respect to the storage system.

9. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the performingof the second security threat detection process is performed in responseto the determining that the storage system is possibly being targeted bythe security threat.

10. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein theperforming of the second security threat detection process is performedin parallel with the performing of the first security threat detectionprocess.

11. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the dataprotection system is implemented by a controller within the storagesystem.

12. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the dataprotection system is implemented by a computing system communicativelycoupled to the storage system by way of a network.

13. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat comprises determining that a ransomware attack ispossibly in progress against the storage system.

14. A system comprising: a memory storing instructions; a processorcommunicatively coupled to the memory and configured to execute theinstructions to: perform, for a storage system, a first security threatdetection process; determine, based on the performing of the firstsecurity threat detection process, that the storage system is possiblybeing targeted by a security threat; and perform a second securitythreat detection process, the second security threat detection processproviding higher confidence threat detection than the first securitythreat detection process.

15. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the processoris further configured to execute the instructions to confirm, based onthe performing of the second security threat detection process, that thestorage system is possibly being targeted by the security threat.

16. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the processoris further configured to execute the instructions to: perform, based onthe determining that the storage system is possibly being targeted bythe security threat, a first remedial action with respect to the storagesystem; and perform, based on the confirming that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat, a second remedial actionwith respect to the storage system.

17. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the firstremedial action is different than the second remedial action.

18. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the firstremedial action or the second remedial action comprises one or more ofproviding a notification, generating a first recovery dataset,preventing a second recovery dataset from being deleted or modified,modifying a data protection parameter set for a third recovery dataset,or restoring data stored by the storage system to an uncorrupted state.

19. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the processoris further configured to execute the instructions to determine, based onthe performing of the second security threat detection process, that thestorage system is not being targeted by the security threat.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that,when executed, direct a processor of a computing device to: perform, fora storage system, a first security threat detection process; determine,based on the performing of the first security threat detection process,that the storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat;and perform a second security threat detection process, the secondsecurity threat detection process providing higher confidence threatdetection than the first security threat detection process.

Additional advantages and features of the present disclosure can befurther described by the following statements.

1. A method comprising: directing, by a data protection system, astorage system to generate recovery datasets over time in accordancewith a data protection parameter set, the recovery datasets usable torestore data maintained by the storage system to a state correspondingto a selectable point in time; determining, by the data protectionsystem, that the storage system is possibly being targeted by a securitythreat; and modifying, by the data protection system in response to thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat, the data protection parameter set for one or more ofthe recovery datasets.

2. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein: the dataprotection parameter set specifies a retention duration for the recoverydatasets, the retention duration defining a duration that each recoverydataset is saved before being deleted; and the modifying of the dataprotection parameter set comprises one or more of increasing theretention duration or suspending the retention duration so that at leastsome of the recovery datasets are not deleted without a specificinstruction provided by a source that manages the storage system.

3. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein: the dataprotection parameter set specifies a recovery dataset generationfrequency that defines a frequency at which the recovery datasets aregenerated; and the modifying of the data protection parameter setcomprises increasing the recovery dataset generation frequency.

4. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein: the dataprotection parameter set specifies a remote storage frequency thatdefines a frequency at which a subset of recovery datasets in therecovery datasets are transmitted to a remote storage system connectedto the storage system by way of a network; and the modifying of the dataprotection parameter set comprises modifying the remote storagefrequency.

5. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:identifying, by the data protection system, an anomaly with respect tothe storage system; wherein the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat is based on theidentifying of the anomaly.

6. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein theidentifying of the anomaly comprises: determining that a total amount ofread traffic and write traffic processed by the storage system during atime period exceeds a threshold, the read traffic representing data readfrom the storage system during the time period and the write trafficrepresenting data written to the storage system during the time period;and determining, by the data protection system, that the write trafficis less compressible than the read traffic.

7. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingperforming, by the data protection system in response to thedetermination that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat, an additional remedial action with respect to thestorage system.

8. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the performingof the additional remedial action comprises directing the storage systemto transmit a recovery dataset included in the recovery datasets to aremote storage system for storage by the remote storage system.

9. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the performingof the additional remedial action comprises providing a notification ofthe security threat.

10. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the dataprotection system is implemented by a controller within the storagesystem.

11. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the dataprotection system is implemented by a computing system communicativelycoupled to the storage system by way of a network.

12. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat comprises determining that ransomware is possibly on thestorage system.

13. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingusing, by the data protection system, at least one of the recoverydatasets to restore the data maintained by the storage system to thestate corresponding to the selectable point in time.

14. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat is performed while the recovery datasets are beinggenerated.

15. A system comprising: a memory storing instructions; a processorcommunicatively coupled to the memory and configured to execute theinstructions to: direct a storage system to generate recovery datasetsover time in accordance with a data protection parameter set, therecovery datasets usable to restore data maintained by the storagesystem to a state corresponding to a selectable point in time; determinethat the storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat;and modify, by in response to the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat, the data protectionparameter set for one or more of the recovery datasets.

16. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein: the dataprotection parameter set specifies a retention duration for the recoverydatasets, the retention duration defining a duration that each recoverydataset is saved before being deleted; and the modifying of the dataprotection parameter set comprises one or more of increasing theretention duration or suspending the retention duration so that at leastsome of the recovery datasets are not deleted without a specificinstruction provided by a source that manages the storage system.

17. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein: the dataprotection parameter set specifies a recovery dataset generationfrequency that defines a frequency at which the recovery datasets aregenerated; and the modifying of the data protection parameter setcomprises increasing the recovery dataset generation frequency.

18. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein: the dataprotection parameter set specifies a remote storage frequency thatdefines a frequency at which a subset of recovery datasets in therecovery datasets are transmitted to a remote storage system connectedto the storage system by way of a network; and the modifying of the dataprotection parameter set comprises modifying the remote storagefrequency.

19. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein: theprocessor is further configured to execute the instructions to identifyan anomaly with respect to the storage system; and the determining thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by the security threat isbased on the identifying of the anomaly.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that,when executed, direct a processor of a computing device to: direct astorage system to generate recovery datasets over time in accordancewith a data protection parameter set, the recovery datasets usable torestore data maintained by the storage system to a state correspondingto a selectable point in time; determine that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by a security threat; and modify, by in responseto the determining that the storage system is possibly being targeted bythe security threat, the data protection parameter set for one or moreof the recovery datasets.

Additional advantages and features of the present disclosure can befurther described by the following statements.

1. A method comprising: detecting, by a data protection system for astorage system, a potential data corruption in the storage system;

analyzing, by the data protection system in response to the detecting ofthe potential data corruption, one or more metrics of the storagesystem; and determining, by the data protection system based on theanalyzing of the one or more metrics of the storage system, acorruption-free recovery point for potential use to recover from thepotential data corruption.

2. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:selecting, by the data protection system based on the corruption-freerecovery point, a recovery dataset corresponding to the corruption-freerecovery point; and restoring, by the data protection system based onthe selected recovery dataset, data stored by the storage system to anuncorrupted state.

3. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingdetermining, by the data protection system, that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by a security threat that causes the potentialdata corruption.

4. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the recoverydataset comprises one or more of a recovery dataset generated prior tothe determining that the storage system is possibly being targeted bythe security threat or a recovery dataset generated after thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat.

5. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the recoverydataset generated prior to the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat comprises a provisionalransomware recovery structure that can only be deleted or modified inaccordance with one or more ransomware recovery parameters.

6. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the one ormore ransomware recovery parameters specify a number or type ofauthenticated entities that have to approve a deletion or modificationof the provisional ransomware recovery structure before the provisionalransomware recovery structure can be deleted or modified.

7. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the one ormore ransomware recovery parameters specify a retention duration beforewhich the provisional ransomware recovery structure can be deleted ormodified.

8. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:receiving, by the data protection system, user input; wherein thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat is based on the user input.

9. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:identifying, by the data protection system, an anomaly with respect tothe storage system; wherein the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat is based on theidentifying of the anomaly.

10. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the restoringis further based on a version of the data stored by the storage systemthat resides on a system other than the storage system.

11. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprisingpresenting, by the data protection system, a visualization of at leastone metric included in the one or more metrics.

12. The method of any of the preceding statements, further comprising:receiving, by the data protection system, user input based on thevisualization; wherein the determining of the corruption-free recoverypoint is further based on the user input.

13. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the dataprotection system is implemented by a controller within the storagesystem.

14. The method of any of the preceding statements, wherein the dataprotection system is implemented by a computing system communicativelycoupled to the storage system by way of a network.

15. A system comprising: a memory storing instructions; a processorcommunicatively coupled to the memory and configured to execute theinstructions to: detect a potential data corruption in a storage system;analyze, in response to the detecting of the potential data corruption,one or more metrics of the storage system; and determine, based on theanalyzing of the one or more metrics of the storage system, acorruption-free recovery point for potential use to recover from thepotential data corruption.

16. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the processoris further configured to execute the instructions to: select, based onthe corruption-free recovery point, a recovery dataset corresponding tothe corruption-free recovery point; and restore, based on the selectedrecovery dataset, data stored by the storage system to an uncorruptedstate.

17. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the processoris further configured to execute the instructions to determine that thestorage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat thatcauses the potential data corruption.

18. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the recoverydataset comprises one or more of a recovery dataset generated prior tothe determining that the storage system is possibly being targeted bythe security threat or a recovery dataset generated after thedetermining that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat.

19. The system of any of the preceding statements, wherein the recoverydataset generated prior to the determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat comprises a provisionalransomware recovery structure that can only be deleted or modified inaccordance with one or more ransomware recovery parameters.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that,when executed, direct a processor of a computing device to: detect apotential data corruption in a storage system; analyze, in response tothe detecting of the potential data corruption, one or more metrics ofthe storage system; and determine, based on the analyzing of the one ormore metrics of the storage system, a corruption-free recovery point forpotential use to recover from the potential data corruption.

One or more embodiments may be described herein with the aid of methodsteps illustrating the performance of specified functions andrelationships thereof. The boundaries and sequence of these functionalbuilding blocks and method steps have been arbitrarily defined hereinfor convenience of description. Alternate boundaries and sequences canbe defined so long as the specified functions and relationships areappropriately performed. Any such alternate boundaries or sequences arethus within the scope and spirit of the claims. Further, the boundariesof these functional building blocks have been arbitrarily defined forconvenience of description. Alternate boundaries could be defined aslong as the certain significant functions are appropriately performed.Similarly, flow diagram blocks may also have been arbitrarily definedherein to illustrate certain significant functionality.

To the extent used, the flow diagram block boundaries and sequence couldhave been defined otherwise and still perform the certain significantfunctionality. Such alternate definitions of both functional buildingblocks and flow diagram blocks and sequences are thus within the scopeand spirit of the claims. One of average skill in the art will alsorecognize that the functional building blocks, and other illustrativeblocks, modules and components herein, can be implemented as illustratedor by discrete components, application specific integrated circuits,processors executing appropriate software and the like or anycombination thereof.

While particular combinations of various functions and features of theone or more embodiments are expressly described herein, othercombinations of these features and functions are likewise possible. Thepresent disclosure is not limited by the particular examples disclosedherein and expressly incorporates these other combinations.

Malicious entities (e.g., hackers, malware, and/or other entities) maygain unauthorized access to a storage system, such as any of the storagesystems described herein. With such access, the malicious entities maytarget the storage system with a security threat, such as a ransomwareattack, a malware attack, and/or one more other operations configured todestroy, modify, render unusable, or otherwise negatively affect thestorage system and/or data maintained by the storage system.

The methods and systems described herein may be configured to detectthat a storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threatand to perform various remedial actions in response to detecting thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by the security threat.

The methods and systems described herein may additionally oralternatively be configured to detect inadvertent corruption and/ordeletion of data stored by a storage system, such as caused byadministrative or application errors. For example, the methods andsystems described herein may implement monitoring for unexpectedbehaviors and controls on deletion of certain kinds of data.

Various advantages and benefits may be realized in accordance with themethods and systems described herein. For example, by detecting andperforming one or more remedial actions with respect to a securitythreat targeting a storage system, the methods and systems describedherein may minimize or eliminate data corruption, structural damage,and/or performance degradation that may occur as a result of thesecurity threat. Moreover, by implementing a data protection system atthe storage level, the methods and systems described herein may providea last line of defense against security threats, or other forms ofcorrupting actions, should other data security measures taken at levelsabove the storage level (e.g., at the client, server, application, ornetwork levels) fail to identify and/or thwart the security threats orother forms of corrupting actions. This may improve the operation ofcomputing devices at both the storage level and at other levels abovethe storage level.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary data protection system 400 (“system400”). As shown, system 400 may include, without limitation, a storagefacility 402 and a processing facility 404 selectively andcommunicatively coupled to one another. Facilities 402 and 404 may eachinclude or be implemented by hardware and/or software components (e.g.,processors, memories, communication interfaces, instructions stored inmemory for execution by the processors, etc.). In some examples,facilities 402 and 404 may be distributed between multiple devicesand/or multiple locations as may serve a particular implementation.

Storage facility 402 may maintain (e.g., store) executable data used byprocessing facility 404 to perform any of the operations describedherein. For example, storage facility 402 may store instructions 406that may be executed by processing facility 404 to perform any of theoperations described herein. Instructions 406 may be implemented by anysuitable application, software, code, and/or other executable datainstance. Storage facility 402 may also maintain any data received,generated, managed, used, and/or transmitted by processing facility 404.Storage facility 402 may additionally maintain any other suitable typeof data as may serve a particular implementation.

Processing facility 404 may be configured to perform (e.g., executeinstructions 406 stored in storage facility 402 to perform) variousprocessing operations described herein. References herein to operationsperformed by system 400 may be understood to be performed by processingfacility 404.

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary configuration 500 in which a storagesystem 502 processes read traffic and write traffic. The read trafficrepresents data read from storage system 502 and the write trafficrepresents data written to storage system 502.

Storage system 502 may be implemented by any of the storage systems,devices, and/or components described herein. For example, storage system502 may be implemented by a local storage system (e.g., a storage systemlocated on-site at a customer's premises) and/or by a remote storagesystem (e.g., a storage system located in the cloud).

As shown, storage system 502 includes a plurality of storage structures504 (e.g., storage structures 504-1 through 504-N) and a controller 506.Storage structures 504 may each include any logical structure withinwhich data may be stored and/or organized. For example, storagestructures 504 may include one or more snapshots, volumes, file systems,object stores, object buckets, key value or relational or otherdatabases, backup datasets, objects that manage a group of volumes,container objects, blocks, etc. In some examples, storage structures 504are maintained in one or more storage elements (e.g., storage arrays,memories, etc.).

Controller 506 may be configured to control operations of elementsincluded in storage system 502 and may be implemented by any suitablecombination of processors, operating systems, and/or other components asdescribed herein. In particular, controller 506 may be configured toproduce control data 508 configured to control storage structures 504.For example, control data 508 may be representative of one or moreinstructions to create, modify, write to, read from, delete, eradicate,and/or otherwise interact with storage structures 504.

Read traffic may represent data read from storage system 502 by a source(e.g., a host in communication with storage system 502), and writetraffic may represent data written to storage system 502 by the source.Read and write traffic may occur in response to the source transmittingone or more requests to storage system 502. These requests may includeinstructions for controller 506 to perform one or more operations. Suchoperations may include writing data to a storage structure 504, readingdata from a storage structure 504, deleting data from a storagestructure 504, overwriting data within a storage structure 504, and/ordeleting a storage structure 504 itself.

In some examples, read traffic, write traffic, and/or one or morerequests to interface with storage system 502 may originate from amalicious source and be representative of a ransomware attack on any ofthe components and/or data within storage system 502 and/or any othermalicious operation that destroys, modifies, renders unusable, orotherwise affects any of the components and/or data within storagesystem 502.

Accordingly, as described herein, system 400 may, in some examples, beconfigured to monitor the read and write traffic processed by storagesystem 502 (e.g., by monitoring one or more requests provided by one ormore sources to storage system 502) to ascertain whether storage system502 is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

In some examples, system 400 is implemented by storage system 502. Forexample, system 400 may be at least partially implemented by controller506. Additionally or alternatively, system 400 may be at least partiallyimplemented by one or more computing devices or systems separate fromand in communication with storage system 502.

To illustrate, FIG. 6 shows an exemplary configuration 600 in which acloud-based monitoring system 602 is communicatively coupled to storagesystem 502 by way of a network 604. Cloud-based monitoring system 602may at least partially implement system 400.

Network 604 may include the Internet, a wide area network, a local areanetwork, a provider-specific wired or wireless network (e.g., a cable orsatellite carrier network or a mobile telephone network), a contentdelivery network, and/or any other suitable network. Data may flowbetween storage system 502 and cloud-based data monitoring system 602using any communication technologies, devices, media, and protocols asmay serve a particular implementation.

Cloud-based monitoring system 602 may be implemented by one or moreserver-side computing devices configured to communicate with storagesystem 502 by way of network 604. For example, cloud-based monitoringsystem 602 may be implemented by one or more servers or other physicalcomputing devices.

Cloud-based monitoring system 602 may be configured to perform one ormore remote monitoring operations with respect to storage system 502.For example, cloud-based monitoring system 602 may be configured toremotely monitor read and write traffic processed by storage system 502and/or requests processed by storage system 502. To this end, as shown,cloud-based monitoring system 602 may receive phone-home data 606 fromcontroller 506 of storage system 502 by way of network 604. Phone-homedata 606 may include various types of data that may be used bycloud-based monitoring system 602 to monitor various types of operationsperformed by storage system 502. In particular, phone-home data 606 mayinclude data representative of one or more metrics and/or attributesassociated with read and write traffic, one or more metrics and/orattributes associated with components within storage system 502, one ormore requests provided by a source to storage system 502, and/or anyother data as may serve a particular implementation.

As shown, cloud-based monitoring system 602 may include a processor 608configured to process phone-home data 606. Processor 608 may processphone-home data 606 in any suitable manner. For example, processor 608may determine, based on phone-home data 606, that storage system 502 ispossibly being targeted by a security threat and transmit instructions610 to controller 506 to perform one or more remedial actions configuredto counteract the security threat.

Various methods that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof are described in connection with variousflowcharts depicted in the figures. While the flowcharts depicted in thefigures illustrate exemplary operations according to one embodiment,other embodiments may omit, add to, reorder, and/or modify any of theoperations shown in the flowcharts depicted in the figures. Moreover,each of the operations shown in the flowcharts depicted in the figuresmay be performed in any of the ways described herein.

FIG. 7 illustrates an exemplary method 700 of dealing with a possiblesecurity threat attack against a storage system (e.g., storage system502). At operation 702, system 400 identifies an anomaly associated witha storage system. At operation 704, system 400 determines, based on theidentified anomaly, that the storage system is possibly being targetedby a security threat. At operation 706, system 400 performs a remedialaction (e.g., in response to determining that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat). Examples of each ofthese operations are described herein.

Various ways in which system 400 may identify an anomaly associated witha storage system and determine that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by a security threat are described in connection with FIGS.8-23 . Each of the processes described in connection with these figuresmay be performed independently to determine that a storage system ispossibly being targeted by a security threat. Alternatively, any numberof the processes described in connection with these figures may beperformed concurrently and/or sequentially in any order to determinethat a storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

FIG. 8 illustrates an exemplary traffic-based security threat detectionmethod 800 that may be performed by system 400 and/or any implementationthereof. Method 800 may be used alone or in combination with any of theother security threat detection methods described herein.

At operation 802, system 400 monitors read traffic and write trafficprocessed by a storage system during a time period. The read trafficrepresents data read from the storage system during the time period andthe write traffic represents data written to the storage system duringthe same time period. In some examples, system 400 is configured to usean unmanipulable clock source internal to the storage system to trackthe time period.

System 400 may monitor read and write traffic in any suitable manner.For example, system 400 may analyze metrics generated by the storagesystem and/or a cloud-based monitoring system (e.g., cloud-basedmonitoring system 602) that are representative of an amount of read andwrite traffic, the type of data included in the read and write traffic,a source of the read and/or write traffic, timestamp data indicative ofa date and/or time that the read and write traffic occurs, and/or anyother attribute of the read and write traffic as may serve a particularimplementation.

The time period during which system 400 monitors the read and writetraffic may be of any suitable duration. In some examples, the timeperiod may be set in response to user input (e.g., by an administrator).Additionally or alternatively, the time period may be set and/oradjusted automatically by system 400 based on an occurrence of one ormore events and/or based on one or more attributes associated with theread and/or write traffic.

At decision 804, system 400 determines whether a total amount of readand write traffic exceeds a threshold. At decision 806, system 400determines whether the write traffic is less compressible than the readtraffic. If the total amount of read and write traffic exceeds thethreshold (“Yes” at decision 804) and the write traffic is lesscompressible, or has a far high number of incompressible blocks than theread traffic, than the read traffic (“Yes” at decision 806), system 400determines at operation 808 that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by a security threat. This is because rewriting data asencrypted data is typical of a ransomware attack, and encrypted data isgenerally not very compressible (in some cases, encrypted data isentirely incompressable). Otherwise, system 400 continues monitoring theread and write traffic (“No” at decision 804 and/or decision 806).

The threshold to which system 400 compares the total amount of read andwrite traffic may be any suitable value and type. For example, thethreshold may be a particular amount of bytes of data included in theread and write traffic during the time period. Additionally oralternatively, the threshold may be representative of a rate (e.g., acertain amount of data per second, minute, hour, or some other timeincrement). Additionally or alternatively, the threshold may berepresentative of aggregate amount (e.g., a total number of bytes).Additionally or alternatively, the threshold may be representative of adifference from historical trends. As an illustration, if system 400detects a spike in a total amount of read and write traffic during aparticular time period compared to a similar time period on a differentday, this may be indicative of a possible security threat against thestorage system.

In some examples, the threshold to which system 400 compares the totalamount of read and write traffic may be set in response to user input(e.g., by an administrator). Additionally or alternatively, thethreshold may be set and/or adjusted automatically by system 400 basedon an occurrence of one or more events and/or based on one or moreattributes associated with the read and/or write traffic. For example,the threshold may be increased during periods of time when the totalamount of read and write traffic are typically higher than average.Likewise, the threshold may be decreased during periods of time when thetotal amount of read and write traffic are typically lower than average.

In some examples, system 400 may maintain data representative ofmultiple thresholds each corresponding to different types of dataincluded in the read and write traffic and/or to any other attribute ofthe read and write traffic. In these examples, system 400 mayconcurrently compare different segments of the read and write traffic tothe different thresholds. If one or more of the thresholds are met,system 400 may satisfy decision 804 (e.g., by proceeding along the “Yes”branch of decision 804).

System 400 may determine whether the write traffic is less compressiblethan the read traffic in any suitable manner. For example, system 400may determine an overall compressibility (e.g., in terms of percentageand/or total amount of storage space saved if compressed) of the writetraffic and of the read traffic during the time period. If the overallcompressibility of the write traffic is less than the overallcompressibility of the read traffic (e.g., by more than a particularthreshold), this may indicate that the write traffic includes encrypteddata (which has a relatively low amount of compressibility), which maybe indicative of a ransomware attack and/or any other type of securitythreat. It will be recognized that overall compressibility is only onemetric that may be used to determine whether the write traffic is lesscompressible than the read traffic. Other metrics may include file byfile comparisons of compressibility, peak compressibility metrics, etc.

As indicated at operation 808, based on the total amount of read trafficand write traffic exceeding the threshold and on the write traffic beingless compressible than the read traffic, system 400 may determine thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.System 400 may take one or more other factors into consideration whendetermining whether the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat.

For example, FIG. 9 illustrates another exemplary traffic-based securitythreat detection method 900 that may be performed by system 400 and/orany implementation thereof. Method 900 may be used alone or incombination with any of the other security threat detection methodsdescribed herein.

Method 900 is similar to method 800, except that method 900 furtherincludes another condition that needs to be satisfied before system 400determines that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat. In particular, at decision 902, system 400 determineswhether the read traffic is within a threshold amount of the writetraffic during the time period. This threshold amount may be relativelysmall such that satisfaction of this condition occurs when the totalamount of read traffic during the time period is approximately the sameas the total amount of write traffic during the time period. This may beindicative of a ransomware attack or other security threat against thestorage system in which data maintained by the storage system is beingread out, encrypted, and written back to the storage system.

Hence, if system 400 determines that the read traffic is within thethreshold amount of the write traffic during the time period (“Yes” atdecision 902), and if the results of decisions 804 and 806 are both“Yes” as described in connection with FIG. 8 , system 400 may determinethat the storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

FIG. 10 illustrates an exemplary attribute-based security threatdetection method 1000 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 1000 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other security threat detection methods describedherein. For example, method 1000 may be used in combination with method800 and/or method 900 to detect data substreams within all of the readand write traffic to a storage system that may be indicative of amethodical attempt by a malicious entity to corrupt data maintained bythe storage system (e.g., by encrypting data and/or overwriting acollection of unencrypted data).

At operation 1002, system 400 identifies an attribute associated withread traffic and/or write traffic processed by a storage system. Thisidentification may be performed while system 400 is monitoring the readand/or write traffic processed by the storage system as describedherein. At operation 1004, system 400 determines, based on theidentified attribute, that the storage system is possibly being targetedby a security threat.

The attribute identified in operation 1002 may be any suitable attributeas may serve a particular implementation. For example, the attribute mayinclude a host attribute that identifies a particular host associatedwith the storage system. In this implementation, system 400 may monitorhost-specific data read from the storage system and/or host-specificdata written to the storage system to detect a possible security threatagainst the storage system. This may be beneficial if there are multiplehosts associated with a particular storage system. In this scenario,host-specific data associated with each host may be monitored inaccordance with a different rule set specific to each host.

To illustrate, a particular host may be associated with highly sensitivedata (e.g., financial data or other types of personal data) maintainedby a storage system that may be more prone to a ransomware attack and/orother type of security threat than other data that is not as sensitive.In this example, a relatively stringent rule set (e.g., a relatively lowthreshold for decision 804) may be used when monitoring read and/orwrite traffic associated with this host. For example, a relativelystringent rule set may be used for a host that does not normally issuetraffic to a particular dataset.

As another example, the attribute identified in operation 1002 mayinclude an attribute of a storage structure (e.g., storage structure504) within the storage system. For example, the attribute may includean identifier of a particular volume and/or other type of storagestructure within the storage system to which data is being writtenand/or from which data is being read, a storage capacity of a storagestructure to which data is being written and/or from which data is beingread, and/or any other suitable attribute associated with a particularstorage structure.

To illustrate, system 400 may monitor read and write traffic associatedwith a particular volume within a storage system to determine whether atotal amount of read and write traffic exceeds a threshold (decision804) and/or whether the write traffic is less compressible than the readtraffic (decision 806). In this manner, a security threat that targets aparticular storage structure within a storage system may be moreeffectively detected.

As another example, the attribute identified at operation 1002 mayinclude a storage format attribute that identifies and/or is otherwiseassociated with a storage format used by the storage system. Forexample, the storage format attribute may indicate that the storagesystem is using an object storage format, a block storage format, and/ora file storage format. This data may be used in any manner to morespecifically specify a rule set used to monitor for possible securitythreats against the storage system.

In some examples, such as in a file-based and/or object-based storagesystem, stored data (e.g., files and/or objects) may be identifiable asbeing of a particular type (e.g., an image file, a video file, a ZIParchive, a text file, a machine code binary file, a log file, a databasetable space, etc.). However, the content of the data may instead looklike encrypted data (e.g. randomized and incompressible content) thatdoes not match what would be expected of the particular type. System 400may be configured to detect these types of content versus format typemismatches and, based on one or more of the mismatches, determine thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

To illustrate, FIG. 11 shows an exemplary format type-based securitythreat detection method 1100 that may be performed by system 400 and/orany implementation thereof. Method 1100 may be used alone or incombination with any of the other security threat detection methodsdescribed herein.

At operation 1102, system 400 monitors write traffic processed by astorage system. This may be performed in any of the ways describedherein.

At operation 1104, system 400 identifies a format type of a datainstance (e.g., a file and/or object) included in the write traffic. Theformat type may be indicative of a particular type of data (e.g., animage file, a database tablespace, etc.). System 400 may identify theformat type based on metadata associated with the data instance, a fileextension of the data instance, and/or in any other suitable manner.

At decision 1106, system 400 determines whether the content of the datainstance matches what is expected for the identified format type. If thecontent of the data instance does not match what is expected for theidentified format type (“No” at decision 1106), system 400 may, atoperation 1108, determine that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by a security threat. If the content of the data instance doesmatch what is expected for the identified format type (“Yes” at decision1106), system continues monitoring the write traffic processed by thestorage system. In some examples, a threshold number of mismatchesbetween data instances and identified format types may be detectedbefore system 400 determines that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by a security threat.

FIG. 12 illustrates an exemplary pattern-based security threat detectionmethod 1200 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 1200 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other security threat detection methods describedherein.

At operation 1202, system 400 identifies a pattern associated with readtraffic and/or write traffic processed by a storage system. Thisidentification may be performed while system 400 is monitoring the readand/or write traffic processed by the storage system as describedherein. At operation 1204, system 400 determines, based on theidentified pattern, that the storage system is possibly being targetedby a security threat.

System 400 may identify the pattern at operation 1202 in any suitablemanner. For example, a ransomware attack may repeatedly read data andwrite the same data in encrypted form in an identifiable pattern ofread/writes. This pattern may be identified by system 400 based one ormore metrics associated with the read and write traffic and used todetermine that the storage system is possibly being targeted by asecurity threat. Such metrics may be included in data maintained by acontroller of a storage system and/or in phone home data transmitted bythe storage system to a cloud-based monitoring system.

As another example, system 400 may identify a pattern involving readingfrom a block volume in some pattern with direct overwrites ofcompressible data with incompressible data (e.g., with no identifiabledata format headers, or with incompressible content versus prior contentthat was compressible) a short time later, particularly in a sequentialpattern of reads and a trailing pattern of sequential overwrites. Toillustrate, such a pattern may include a read of the first few blocks ofa block volume or partition or another recognizable structure stored ona block volume that may be the start of a file system or host-basedblock device (e.g., a logical volume in a volume manager), followed byan overwrite of that data with relatively incompressible data. In someexamples, such a pattern may begin at logical block address (LBA) zero.

As another example, system 400 may identify any pattern of readingunmapped blocks and rewriting of those same blocks with relativelyincompressible data, or writing an equivalent amount of relativelyincompressible data elsewhere in the storage system.

These patterns, as well as others that may be detected by system 400,are not common I/O patterns for a storage system and may accordingly beflagged by system 400 as being indicative of a possible security threatagainst the storage system.

System 400 may detect a pattern indicative of a possible security threatagainst a storage system over any suitable amount of time. For example,some patterns may be relatively subtle and therefore detected by system400 over a relatively long amount of time using one or more metrics,machine learning algorithms, and/or other detection algorithms. Otherpatterns may be detected relatively quickly by system 400.

In some examples, a confidence level of the determination made by system400 that the storage system is possibly being targeted by a securitythreat may change over time as one or more patterns are detected and/ortracked by system 400. For example, a detected pattern may result insystem 400 determining that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by a security threat with an initial confidence level. Overtime, if the pattern persists or becomes more prevalent, the confidencelevel of the determination that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by the security threat may increase.

FIG. 13 shows an exemplary header information-based security threatdetection method 1300 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 1300 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other security threat detection methods describedherein.

At operation 1302, system 400 monitors read and write traffic processedby a storage system. This may be performed in any of the ways describedherein.

At decision 1304, system 400 determines whether the write trafficincludes identifiable header information. If the write traffic does notinclude identifiable header information (“No” at decision 1304), system400 may, at operation 1308, determine that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by a security threat.

If the write traffic does include identifiable header information (“Yes”at decision 1304), system 400 determines, at decision 1306, whether theheader information matches content included in data written to thestorage system. If the header information does not match contentincluded in data written to the storage system, system 400 may, atoperation 1308, determine that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by a security threat. Alternatively, if the header informationdoes match content included in data written to the storage system,system 400 may return to monitoring the write traffic at operation 1302.

As used herein, header information may refer to supplemental dataincluded in (e.g., placed at a beginning of) a block of data beingtransmitted to the storage system. The header information may identify aformat, type, and/or other attribute of data included in a payloadportion of the block of data being transmitted to the storage system.Additionally or alternatively, the header information may include achecksum and/or other data that may be used to test for corrupted data.

In some examples, legitimate data (e.g., data not associated with asecurity threat) being written to a storage system includes identifiableheader information that matches content (e.g., payload content) includedin the data being written to the storage system. For example, if theidentifiable header information of legitimate data indicates that thepayload data has a certain format, the payload data should have thatformat.

However, data associated with a security threat (e.g., a ransomwareattack and/or an attempt to write corrupt data to the storage system)may either not have identifiable header information or includeidentifiable header information that does not match content included inthe data being written to the storage system. For example, data beingwritten to a storage system as part of a security threat against thestorage system may include header information related to known image,video, sound, or archive files, but payload data included in the databeing written to the storage system may not be of any of those types offiles. As another example, files may be renamed as part of are-encryption performed by a malicious entity. For example, if acollection of JPEG files are rewritten into new files with new names,those names may not indicate that they are JPEG files. To detect this,system 400 may determine that a preponderance of files in a directorytree, for example, had been of a particular set of file types byfilename pattern, and that those files are being replaced by new filesthat no longer have that filename pattern.

Accordingly, if data being written to the storage system does notinclude identifiable header information, system 400 may flag the data aspossibly being representative of a security threat against the storagesystem. Additionally or alternatively, if data written to the storagesystem includes identifiable header information, but the headerinformation does not match content included in the data written to thestorage, system 400 may flag the data as possibly being representativeof a security threat against the storage system.

In some examples, system 400 may determine file formats from header datawhen reading files. This may be performed when files are written outwith a name pattern (such as with a .JPG suffix), by recognizingcontents of configuration files (such as a database configuration fileidentifying certain files or block devices as being used as specificparts of a database (logs, tablespaces, etc.)), and/or in any suitablemanner. Accordingly, system 400 may detect a change in filename patternby detecting when reads have a particular detectable format but writesdo not have the same format, or when writes of files with known filenameformats (such as .JPG suffixes or the many other suffixes associatedwith file types) do not result in files with a recognizable format. Inresponse, system 400 may flag data involved in these writes as possiblybeing representative of a security threat against the storage system.

In some examples, system 400 may base a determination of whether astorage system is being targeted by a security threat by comparingheader information included in read traffic with header informationincluded in write traffic. For example, if data read from the storagesystem is at least partially compressed (e.g., already compressed image,video, or sound files, or even compressed archives) and includesidentifiable header information, but no similar identifiable headerinformation can be found in the data being written to the storagesystem, this may indicate that the read data is being replaced withencrypted data. Hence, system 400 may in this scenario determine thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

FIG. 14 shows an exemplary cryptography-based security threat detectionmethod 1400 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 1400 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other security threat detection methods describedherein.

At operation 1402, system 400 monitors write traffic processed by astorage system. This may be performed in any of the ways describedherein.

At decision 1404, system 400 determines whether data included in thewrite traffic is encrypted. If the data is not encrypted (“No” atdecision 1404), system 1402 continues monitoring the write traffic(operation 1402).

However, if the data is encrypted (“Yes” at decision 1404), system 400determines at decision 1406 whether the encrypted data is decryptableusing a key maintained by an authorized key management system. If thedata is decryptable using a key maintained by the authorized keymanagement system (“Yes” at decision 1406), system 1402 continuesmonitoring the write traffic (operation 1402).

However, if the data is not decryptable using a key maintained by theauthorized key management system (“No” at decision 1406), system 400 maydetermine, at operation 1408, that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by a security threat.

In this example, the authorized key management system may be implementedby any suitable entity and/or system external to and in communicationwith the storage system. For example, the authorized key managementsystem may utilize the key management interoperability protocol (KMIP)to encrypt legitimate data before the legitimate data is written to thestorage system. In some examples, an authorized key management systemexternal to the storage system may facilitate data in motion securitybefore the data is written to the storage system. In some examples, suchdata in motion security may not prevent system 400 from profiling theunderlying data (e.g., the data that has been encrypted) forcompressibility.

System 400 may determine whether data included in the write traffic isdecryptable into recognizable unencrypted data using a key maintained byan authorized key management system in any suitable manner. For example,system 400 may route the write traffic through the authorized keymanagement system before allowing the write traffic to be written to thestorage system. The authorized key management system may determinewhether the write traffic is decryptable in any suitable manner. Asanother example, system 400 may maintain a copy of the key maintained bythe authorized key management system and perform any suitable processconfigured to determine whether the data included in the write trafficis decryptable using the key. As another example, there could bemultiple keys that might be used to encrypt data, where the key used forencryption of a particular data item is not obvious from the itemitself. Multiple candidate keys could be tried for decryption, as aresult, to determine if any of them can decrypt the data into a formthat is recognizable as unencrypted.

If the data included in the write traffic is not decryptable by any ofseveral candidate keys maintained by the authorized key managementsystem, system 400 may determine that the data is possibly associatedwith a security threat against the storage system.

FIG. 15 shows another exemplary cryptography-based security threatdetection method 1500 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 1500 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other security threat detection methods describedherein.

At operation 1502, system 400 monitors write traffic processed by astorage system. This may be performed in any of the ways describedherein.

At decision 1504, system 400 determines whether data included in thewrite traffic is encrypted. If the data is not encrypted (“No” atdecision 1504), system 1502 continues monitoring the write traffic(operation 1502).

However, if the data is encrypted (“Yes” at decision 1504), system 400determines at decision 1506 whether the encrypted data includes acorrect cryptographic signature. As used herein, a cryptographicsignature may refer to any sequence of data (e.g., a digital signature)that indicates that data has been encrypted using a key maintained by anauthorized key management system.

If the encrypted data does include a correct cryptographic signature(“Yes” at decision 1506), system 1502 continues monitoring the writetraffic (operation 1502).

However, if the encrypted data does not include a correct cryptographicsignature (“No” at decision 1506), system 400 may determine, atoperation 1508, that the storage system is possibly being targeted by asecurity threat.

In some examples, method 1400 and/or method 1500 may be leveraged toprovide an end-to-end authentication heuristic from applications throughthe storage stack to prevent an unauthenticated process from writingdata associated with a security threat (e.g., ransomware blocks) to thestorage system in the first place.

FIG. 16 shows an exemplary stored data-based security threat detectionmethod 1600 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 1600 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other security threat detection methods describedherein.

At operation 1602, system 400 monitors write traffic processed by astorage system. This may be performed in any of the ways describedherein.

At decision 1604, system 400 determines whether data already stored bythe storage system is being deleted or overwritten by the write traffic.If data is not being deleted or overwritten (“No” at decision 1604),system 400 continues monitoring the write traffic at operation 1602.

However, if data is being deleted or overwritten by the write traffic(“Yes” at decision 1604), system 400 may determine, at operation 1606,that the storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

System 400 may determine that data already stored by the storage systemis being deleted or overwritten by write traffic in any suitable manner.For example, in a file or object based storage system, deletions andoverwrites can be detected directly. In the case of an object basedstorage system that is being used by a host to store file systems ordatabases, deletions may be inferred by system 400 by a combination ofpreviously read data being overwritten quickly, or sometime later (suchas because blocks added to a free list were eventually reused), by beingunmapped, or by being overwritten with zeros. Such deletions oroverwrites may in and of themselves be indicative of a possible securitythreat against a storage system. Additionally or alternatively, suchdeletions or overwrites in combination with any of the other securitythreat detection methods described herein may be indicative of apossible security threat against a storage system.

FIG. 17 shows a remote security threat detection method 1700 that may beperformed by system 400 and/or any implementation thereof. Method 1700may be used alone or in combination with any of the other securitythreat detection methods described herein.

At operation 1702, system 400 accesses phone home data (e.g., phone homedata 606) transmitted by a storage system. This may be performed in anyof the ways described herein.

At operation 1704, system 400 detects, based on the phone home data, ananomaly associated with the storage system. The anomaly may include anyof the anomalies described herein.

At operation 1706, system 400 determines, based on the detected anomaly,that the storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

To illustrate, a cloud-based monitoring system implementation of system400 may use the phone home data transmitted thereto by a storage systemto identify a pattern and or attribute of read and/or write traffic thatmay be indicative of a possible security threat against the storagesystem. For example, system 400 may detect that an overallcompressibility of data stored by the storage system is below ahistorical norm associated with the storage system or with a differentstorage system (e.g., a different storage system that has one or moresimilar attributes as the storage system). Based on this, system 400 maydetermine that the storage system is possibly being targeted by asecurity threat.

In some examples, system 400 may be provided with user input thatidentifies certain metrics that system 400 should focus on (e.g., inphone home data and/or in metrics data maintained by the storage system)when monitoring for anomalies that may be indicative of a securitythreat against the storage system. For example, a customer of a storagesystem may provide user input representative of expected types of datafor the write traffic so that system 400 may take that information intoaccount when analyzing the write traffic.

FIG. 18 shows an exemplary rate-based security threat detection method1800 that may be performed by system 400 and/or any implementationthereof. Method 1800 may be used alone or in combination with any of theother security threat detection methods described herein.

At operation 1802, system 400 detects a rate at which data is read froma storage system and written back to the storage system in encryptedform. At operation 1804, system 400 determines, based on the detectedrate, that the storage system is possibly being targeted by a securitythreat.

To illustrate, some relatively slow write patterns may be an indicationthat a malicious entity is in fact doing something that a normal programthat encrypts a dataset for legitimate purposes would not be doing. Forexample, a sequential process that reads data and writes back that samedata in incompressible form, but that does so at a rate that is muchslower than a legitimate process would do so may itself be an indicationthat the storage system is being targeted by a security threat. System400 may be configured to detect this difference in rate and, inresponse, determine that the storage system is possibly being targetedby a security threat.

As another example, a process that slowly rewrites a set of files thatwere originally in a recognizable format into a nonrecognizable formatmay be an indication that the storage system is being targeted by asecurity threat. Based on this relatively slow rewrite process, system400 may determine that the storage system is possibly being targeted bya security threat.

As another example, a read/write process that is relatively faster thanwhat would be expected during a particular time period may be anindication that the storage system is being targeted by a securitythreat. For example, during a weekend when read/write traffic ishistorically relatively slow, if system 400 detects a rate ofread/writes that is above a particular threshold, system 400 maydetermine that the storage system is possibly being targeted by asecurity threat.

Rate-based detection of security threats may be performed over anysuitable amount of time. For example, to detect relatively slow rates,system 400 may monitor one or more metrics associated with read/writetraffic over the course of a relatively long period of time. In thesecases, system 400 may lock down and/or otherwise maintain one or morerecovery datasets (e.g., provisional ransomware recovery structures, asdescribed herein) for a relatively long period of time in case they areneeded to recover from data corruption caused by the security threat.

FIG. 19 shows an exemplary machine learning model-based security threatdetection method 1900 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 1900 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other security threat detection methods describedherein.

At operation 1902, a machine learning model is trained (e.g., by system400 and/or any other system) to detect anomalies associated withread/write traffic processed by a storage system. The machine learningmodel may be supervised and/or unsupervised as may serve a particularimplementation and may be configured to implement one or more decisiontree learning algorithms, association rule learning algorithms,artificial neural network learning algorithms, deep learning algorithms,bitmap algorithms, and/or any other suitable data analysis technique asmay serve a particular implementation. In some examples, the machinelearning model is trained with actual ransomware payloads.

In some examples, the machine learning model is trained using honeypotfiles, sectors of blocks, and/or any other data structure configured toserve as a decoy for ransomware and other security threats. Thesehoneypot data structures may be maintained by system 400 at any suitablelocation (e.g., within the storage system or remote from the storagesystem). Based on how attackers interact with the honeypot datastructures, system 400 may train the machine learning model. Thehoneypot outputs may additionally or alternatively be used incombination with any of the other security threat detection methodsdescribed herein.

At operation 1904, system 400 inputs attribute data for read traffic,write traffic, and/or the storage system into the machine learningmodel. The machine learning model may process this attribute data in anysuitable manner. For example, the machine learning model may be trainedto look at deduplication checksum/hashes in a data reducing storagearray leveraging an out of band cloud service that cannot becompromised. This may allow the machine learning model to recognize whenwrite traffic differs from a historical trend. As another example, themachine learning model may be configured to detect actual ransomwarepayloads within write traffic.

At operation 1906, system 400 determines, based on an output of themachine learning model, that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by a security threat. This may be performed in any suitablemanner. For example, the output of the machine learning may include aconfidence score. If the confidence score is above a certain threshold,system 400 may determine that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by a security threat.

FIG. 20 shows an exemplary garbage collection-based security threatdetection method 2000 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 2000 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other security threat detection methods describedherein.

At operation 2002, system 400 monitors a garbage collection processperformed by a storage system. The garbage collection process mayinclude any process configured to reclaim storage system space asdescribed herein.

At decision 2004, system 400 determines whether there is an anomaly inthe garbage collection process performed by the storage system. Ifsystem 400 does not determine that there is an anomaly in the garbagecollection process performed by the storage system (“No” at decision2004), system 400 continues monitoring the garbage collection process atoperation 2002. However, if system 400 determines that there is ananomaly in the garbage collection process performed by the storagesystem (“Yes” at decision 2004), system 400 may determine at operation2006 that the storage system is possibly being targeted by a securitythreat.

System 400 may detect an anomaly in a garbage collection processperformed by a storage system in any suitable manner. For example, asdata in a segment becomes invalid due to a ransomware attack or othersecurity threat, the data becomes more attractive for garbagecollection. This may result in a higher than average amount of garbagecollection performed by the storage system. This change in garbagecollection may be detected by system 400 by analyzing metrics associatedwith the garbage collection process and may be used to determine thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

System 400 may additionally or alternatively monitor one or more otherinternal processes performed by a storage system to determine whetherthe storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat. Forexample, system 400 may monitor a deep compression process performed byone or more libraries within a storage system. In this example, system400 may monitor for block patterns that match one or more rootkitsand/or other structures that are put in place during the full lifecycleof a malicious attack. Such block patterns may be indicative of animpending encryption process that happens at the end of the maliciousattack. If such block patterns are detected, system 400 may determinethat the storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

In some configurations, first and second storage systems are configuredto serve as replicating storage systems one for another. For example,any data stored in the first storage system may be replicated in thesecond storage system. This may provide various data redundancy andsecurity features. In these configurations, system 400 may be configuredto identify attributes of both storage systems (e.g., by monitoringread/write traffic at both storage systems) to determine whether one orboth of the storage systems are possibly being targeted by a securitythreat.

To illustrate, FIG. 21 shows an exemplary replicating storagesystem-based security threat detection method 2100 that may be performedby system 400 and/or any implementation thereof. Method 2100 may be usedalone or in combination with any of the other security threat detectionmethods described herein.

At operation 2102, system 400 monitors read and/or write trafficprocessed by a storage system. This may be performed in any of the waysdescribed herein.

At decision 2104, system 400 determines whether there is an anomalyassociated with the storage system (e.g., with the read and/or writetraffic processed by the storage system). This may be performed in anyof the ways described herein. If system 400 does not detect an anomaly(“No” at decision 2104), system 400 continues monitoring the read and/orwrite traffic at operation 2102.

However, if system 400 detects an anomaly (“Yes” at decision 2104),system 400 may determine whether a similar (e.g., the same) anomalyexists at a replicating storage system configured to replicate datastored by the storage system (decision 2106).

If system 400 does not detect an anomaly at the replicating storagesystem (“No” at decision 2106), system 400 continues monitoring the readand/or write traffic at operation 2102.

However, if system 400 detects an anomaly at the replicating storagesystem (“Yes” at decision 2106), system 400 may determine at operation2108, based on the anomaly being detected at both storage systems, thatthe storage system (and, in some cases, the replicating storage system)is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

By way of example, analyzers implementing system 400 may be run on bothstorage systems when a dataset is replicated between a first and secondstorage system, with results compared so that the two storage systemscan serve as checks on each other. For example, metrics that lead system400 to provisionally determine that the first storage system is possiblybeing targeted by a security threat may be exchanged to ensure that bothstorage systems are seeing the same information.

Since many read and write requests (or file system, database, or objectrequests) may only be received by one of the storage systems, the otherstorage system may only have some metrics. For example, the secondstorage system, such as one that is the target of an asymmetric form ofreplication for a dataset, may only have information on generalcompressibility of writes for that dataset. The two storage systems maystill exchange the metrics they do have with each other, with eachcomparing the metrics they do know to those coming from the otherstorage system and using the metrics received from the other storagesystem.

For example, a combination of actual profiles of read, writes,overwrites, compressibility of data in actual read and write requests,and metrics organized by hosts may be exchanged with the storage systemscomparing general compressibility of written data for anomalies betweenthe two storage systems and with the additional information from a firststorage system used to duplicate the first storage system's analysis onthe second storage system.

In a symmetrically replicated storage system with symmetric access toreplicated datasets, metrics may be exchanged to ensure that bothstorage systems have the relevant data necessary for either of them todetect some types of anomalies, such as because some read, write, orother requests are directed to one of the two storage systems whileother read, write, or other requests are directed to the other of thetwo storage systems.

These kinds of exchanges may further be used to detect some exampleswhere one or the other storage system has been compromised. For example,secure hashes of metrics that both storage systems are expected to knowmay be exchanged rather than exchanging those metrics directly, so acompromised storage system cannot use trends in a common metric receivedfrom the other storage system to guess future values for that metric tofool the paired storage system. Since metrics can have some naturaldifferences between two storage systems such as due to other activity,differences in snapshots, or delays in when updates are received andprocessed, securely hashed metrics may allow for approximations. Thismay be done in several ways, such as by providing a small set of securehashes corresponding to discrete ranges of values. For example, if acompressibility factor or compressibility factors within time ranges isprovided for recent updates to a dataset, such as based on a percentage,if a first storage system sees an overall compressibility in recentupdates of 20% on 100 MB of updates in the prior 30 second interval, andanother sees a compressibility of recent updates of 18% on 99 MB ofupdates in the prior 30 second interval, then the first storage systemmay securely hash values representing two compressibility ranges of 18%to 20% and 20% to 22% each combined with two update quantity ranges of98 MB to 100 MB and 100 MB to 102 MB, (forming four secure hashes ofeach compressibility range with each update quantity range) and thesecond storage system may securely hash values representing twocompressibility ranges of 16% to 18% and 18% to 20% each combined withthree update quantity ranges of 96 MB to 98 MB, 98 MB to 100 MB, and 100MB to 102 MB (forming six secure hashes of each compressibility rangewith each update quantity range). Since one of the ranges from the firststorage system agrees with one of the ranges from the second storagesystem, the storage systems can be seen as agreeing closely enoughwithout having exchanged too much data about their actual metrics.

In some examples, metrics may be shared to some third system or to acloud service or some vendor provided service for comparison purposes,in addition to or rather than the two storage systems themselves sharingthese anomaly detection metrics data between them. If the two storagesystems do not exchange these metrics, then an external system orservice can be more certain that the metrics it is receiving from eachsystem are not being guessed at by compromised storage system based ondata it is exchanging with an uncompromised storage system.

FIG. 22 shows an exemplary user input-based security threat detectionmethod 2200 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 2200 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other security threat detection methods describedherein.

At operation 2202, system 400 identifies an attribute associated withdata read from the storage system and/or data written to the storagesystem. The attribute may include one or more of the attributesdescribed herein.

At operation 2204, system 400 presents, within a graphical userinterface displayed by a display device, graphical informationassociated with the attribute. For example, system 400 may present oneor more graphs, analytics information, etc. associated with theattribute.

At operation 2206, system 400 receives user input by way of thegraphical user interface (and/or by way of any other means for receivinguser input, such as by way of an API). For example, a user (e.g., anadministrator) may, based on the graphical information, provide userinput indicating that the attribute is indicative of a possible securitythreat against the storage system.

At operation 2208, system 400 determines, based on the user input, thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat.

To illustrate, system 400 may provide a graph over time of variousmetrics that may be useful for determining when an attack may havestarted over time. Based on this graph, a user may provide user inputindicating that the storage system has been possibly targeted by asecurity threat.

In some examples, system 400 may be configured to perform multiplesecurity threat detection processes to determine whether a storagesystem is being targeted by a security threat. For example, system 400may perform two or more of the security threat detection methodsdescribed in connection with FIGS. 8-22 . These threat detectionprocesses may be performed in parallel and/or serially as may serve aparticular implementation.

Some security threat detection processes provide higher confidencethreat detection than others. In other words, some security threatdetection processes may detect a possible security threat with higheraccuracy than others. However, a relatively high confidence threatdetection method may, in some instances, be more resource intensiveand/or take more time than relatively low confidence threat detectionmethods. Hence, in some examples, system 400 may be configured toinitially use a first security threat detection process to provisionallydetermine that a storage system is a target of a security threat. System400 may then use a second security threat detection process thatprovides higher confidence threat detection than the first securitythreat detection process to verify the provisional determination thatthe storage system is a target of the security threat.

To illustrate, FIG. 23 shows an exemplary multi-level security threatdetection method 2300 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 2300 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other security threat detection methods describedherein.

At operation 2302, system 400 performs a first security threat detectionprocess with respect to a storage system. The first security threatdetection process may include any of the security threat detectionprocesses described herein.

At decision 2304, system 400 determines, based on the first securitythreat detection process, whether the storage system is a possibletarget of a security threat. If system 400 determines that the storagesystem is not a possible target of security threat based on the firstsecurity threat detection process (“No” at decision 2304), system 400continues to perform the first security threat detection process atoperation 2302.

However, if system 400 determines, based on the first security threatdetection process, that the storage system is a possible target of asecurity threat (“Yes” at decision 2304), system 400 may perform asecond security threat detection process with respect to the storagesystem (operation 2306). The second security threat detection process isconfigured to provide higher confidence threat detection than the firstsecurity threat detection process. Based on the results of the secondsecurity threat detection process, system 400 may either confirm thatthe storage system is being targeted by the security threat or determinethat the storage system is not being targeted by the security threat.

In some examples, the second security threat detection process isperformed in response to determining that the storage system is possiblybeing targeted by the security threat. Alternatively, the secondsecurity threat detection process may be performed in parallel with thefirst second security threat detection process.

In method 2300, the first and second security threat detection processesmay be different in some examples. For example, the first securitythreat detection process may require less resources to perform than thesecond security threat detection process. In alternative examples, thefirst and second security threat detection processes are similarprocesses. In these examples, the second security threat detectionprocess may, for example, be performed for a longer duration and/or withdifferent parameters to provide the higher confidence threat detection.In alternative examples, the first and second security threat detectionprocesses are the same, just performed over different time periods tomake a determination with different levels of accuracy.

Various remedial actions that may be performed by system 400 in responseto determining that a storage system is possibly being targeted by asecurity threat are described in connection with FIGS. 24-30 . Each ofthe processes described in connection with these figures may beperformed independently or in combination (e.g., sequentially orconcurrently) with other processes used to perform a remedial action.Moreover, each of the remedial action processes described in connectionwith these figures may be performed in connection with one or more ofthe security threat detection processes described herein.

FIG. 24 shows an exemplary recovery dataset-based remedial action method2400 that may be performed by system 400 and/or any implementationthereof. Method 2400 may be used alone or in combination with any of theother remedial action methods described herein.

At operation 2402, system 400 determines that a storage system ispossibly being targeted by a security threat. This may be performed inany of the ways described herein.

At operation 2404, system 400 directs the storage system to generate, inresponse to the determination that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by the security threat, a recovery dataset for data stored bythe storage system. The recovery dataset may include a snapshot, abackup dataset, an ordered log of metadata describing an orderedapplication of updates to data maintained by the storage system, and/orany other suitable data structure that may be used to restore data to anuncorrupted state. The recovery dataset 400 may be for all data storedby the storage system, data stored on a particular storage structure(e.g., a volume), data associated with a particular host, and/or anyother subset of data stored by the storage system.

By directing the storage system to immediately generate a recoverydataset in response to determining that the storage system is possiblybeing targeted by the security threat, system 400 may use the recoverydataset (or direct the storage system to use the recovery dataset) torestore at least some of the data maintained by the storage system to anuncorrupted state should the possible security threat turn out to be anactual security threat. In some examples, the recovery dataset is usedin combination with one or more previously generated recovery datasetsand/or other data sources (e.g., data residing at a host) to restoredata that is already corrupted before the recovery dataset is generatedin response to the determination that the storage system is possiblybeing targeted by the security threat.

In some examples, system 400 may direct the storage system to transmitthe recovery dataset to a remote storage system for storage by theremote storage system. The remote storage system may include anycombination of computing devices remote from and communicatively coupledto the storage system (e.g., by way of a network). In this manner, therecovery dataset itself may be protected from the security threat. Insome examples, the transmission of the recovery dataset to the remotestorage system is performed using a NFS protocol, an object storeprotocol, an SMB storage protocol, an S3 storage protocol, and/or anyother storage protocol as may serve a particular implementation. In someexamples, the remote storage system is implemented by write-only mediawith restrictions on deletions.

In some examples, system 400 may notify the remote storage system of thesecurity threat so that the remote storage system may abstain fromdeleting the recovery dataset until one or more conditions arefulfilled. Such conditions may include, but are not limited to, inputprovided by one or more authenticated entities, a notification fromsystem 400 that it is safe to delete the recovery dataset, etc. Forexample, system 400 may determine that the storage system is actuallynot being targeted by the security threat. In response, system 400 maytransmit a command to the remote storage system for the remote storagesystem to delete the recovery dataset.

In embodiments where the recovery dataset is stored within the storagesystem, system 400 may prevent the recovery dataset from being deletedor modified until system 400 determines that the recovery dataset is notneeded to restore data within the storage system. For example, system400 may direct the storage system to lock down the recovery dataset,make the recovery dataset read-only, make the recovery dataset hidden,and/or otherwise protect the recovery dataset. When one or moreconditions are fulfilled (e.g., input from one or more authenticatedentities, passage of a set amount of time, etc.), system 400 may allowthe storage system to delete the recovery dataset.

FIG. 25 shows an exemplary continuous data protection-based remedialaction method 2500 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 2500 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other remedial action methods described herein.

At operation 2502, system 400 directs a storage system to generaterecovery datasets over time (e.g., as a rolling set of snapshots) inaccordance with a data protection parameter set. As described herein,these recovery datasets are usable to restore data maintained by thestorage system to a state corresponding to a selectable point in time.The data protection parameter set may define one or more parametersassociated with the generation of the recovery datasets over time, asdescribed herein.

At operation 2504, system 400 determines that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by a security threat. This may be performed inany of the ways described herein. In some examples, one or more of therecovery datasets generated at operation 2502 are generated prior tosystem 400 determining that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by the security threat. One or more of the recovery datasetsgenerated at operation 2502 may also be generated subsequent to system400 determining that the storage system is possibly being targeted bythe security threat.

At operation 2506, system 400 modifies, in response to determining thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by the security threat,the data protection parameter set for one or more of the recoverydatasets.

To illustrate, the data protection parameter set may specify a retentionduration for one or more of the recovery datasets. The retentionduration defines a duration that each recovery dataset is saved beforebeing deleted (e.g., 24 or 48 hours, or longer in the case of, forexample, a weekend or extended break). In the absence of a detectedsecurity threat, each recovery dataset may be retained for only arelatively short duration before being deleted. However, based on adetermination that the storage system is possibly being targeted by asecurity threat, system 400 may either increase the retention durationor suspend the retention duration so that at least some of the recoverydatasets are not deleted without a specific instruction provided by asource that manages the storage system. In this manner, one or more ofthe recovery datasets may be used to restore data on the storage systemto an uncorrupted state if system 400 determines that the storage systemhas in actuality been targeted by the security threat.

As another example, the data protection parameter set may additionallyor alternatively specify a recovery dataset generation frequency thatdefines a frequency at which the recovery datasets are generated. Inthis example, based on a determination that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by a security threat, system 400 may increasethe recovery dataset generation frequency so that more recovery datasetsare available for use in restoring data on the storage system to anuncorrupted state if system 400 determines that the storage system hasin actuality been targeted by the security threat.

As another example, the data protection parameter set may additionallyor alternatively specify a remote storage frequency that defines afrequency at which a subset of recovery datasets in the recoverydatasets are transmitted to a remote storage system connected to thestorage system by way of a network (e.g., by using a network filesystem, streaming backup, or object storage protocol). In this example,based on a determination that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by a security threat, system 400 may modify the remote storagefrequency. For example, system 400 may increase the remote storagefrequency so that more recovery datasets are stored in a read-onlyformat on the remote storage system and available for use in restoringdata on the storage system to an uncorrupted state if system 400determines that the storage system has in actuality been targeted by thesecurity threat.

System 400 may additionally or alternatively direct the storage systemto generate (e.g., periodically and/or in response to an occurrence ofcertain events) one or more provisional ransomware recovery structures(e.g., snapshots). These provisional ransomware recovery structures maybe configured such that they can only be deleted or modified inaccordance with one or more ransomware recovery parameters. For example,the one or more ransomware recovery parameters may specify a number or acollection of types of authenticated entities that have to approve adeletion or modification of a provisional ransomware recovery structurebefore the provisional ransomware recovery structure can be deleted ormodified. As another example, the one or more ransomware recoveryparameters may specify a minimum retention duration before which theprovisional ransomware recovery structure can be deleted or modified.

In some examples, any of the recovery datasets generated herein may beconverted to a set of locked-down snapshots (or other suitable types ofrecovery datasets), possibly as a combination of discretionary snapshotsformed early in a possible attack which can be deleted by the storagesystem itself if system 400 determines that the detection was a falsealarm that did not stand up to deeper scrutiny. Additionally oralternatively, instead of formalizing formation and holds ondiscretionary snapshots, garbage collection, merges, deletions, and/orother maintenance on continuous data protection stores or frequentsnapshots may be put on hold pending further analysis. For example, assoon as a bump in incompressible writes is received that is beyondhistorical norms, system 400 may initiate discretionary lockdowns toavoid deleting recent recoverable images of the storage system thatprecede the increase in incompressible writes. If the increase inincompressible writes reverts to the historical norm or does not hold upas sufficient to indicate a plausible ransomware attack, then thediscretionary snapshots or holds on maintenance operations may bereleased. If they do hold up, they may be converted intoransomware/corruption protection snapshots with their increased scrutinyrequired for deletion (or with no means of deleting them within somedesignated or scheduled time frame). In the case of a continuous dataprotection store, rather than forming a ransomware/corruption protectionsnapshot, cleanup or merger of consistency points within the continuousdata protection store itself may be blocked from occurring or severelyreduced if a plausible sustained attack is detected, with the same kindsof models for duration of time and change authorization models that aredescribed for ransomware/corruption protection snapshots.

A continuous data protection store is a feature of a storage system thatrecords updates to a dataset in such a way that consistent images ofprior contents of the dataset can be accessed with a low timegranularity (often on the order of seconds, or even less), andstretching back for a reasonable period of time (often hours or days).These allow access to very recent consistent points in time for thedataset, and also allow access to access to points in time for a datasetthat might have just preceded some event that, for example, caused partsof the dataset to be corrupted or otherwise lost, while retaining closeto the maximum number of updates that preceded that event. Conceptually,they are like a sequence of snapshots of a dataset taken very frequentlyand kept for a long period of time, though continuous data protectionstores are often implemented quite differently from snapshots. A storagesystem implementing a data continuous data protection store may furtherprovide a means of accessing these points in time, accessing one or moreof these points in time as snapshots or as cloned copies, or revertingthe dataset back to one of those recorded points in time.

Over time, to reduce overhead, some points in the time held in acontinuous data protection store can be merged with other nearby pointsin time, essentially deleting some of these points in time from thestore. This can reduce the capacity needed to store updates. It may alsobe possible to convert a limited number of these points in time intolonger duration snapshots. For example, such a store might keep a lowgranularity sequence of points in time stretching back a few hours fromthe present, with some points in time merged or deleted to reduceoverhead for up to an additional day. Stretching back in the pastfurther than that, some of these points in time could be converted tosnapshots representing consistent point-in-time images from only everyfew hours.

FIG. 26 shows an exemplary modify-access-based remedial action method2600 that may be performed by system 400 and/or any implementationthereof. Method 2600 may be used alone or in combination with any of theother remedial action methods described herein.

At operation 2602, system 400 may determine that data stored by astorage system is under a possible attack. The terms “under a possibleattack” and “under possible attack” are used interchangeably herein torefer to a situation where data stored by a storage system is possiblybeing targeted by an attack. Such an attack may include an encryptionattack against the data stored by the storage system (e.g., a ransomwareattack or an attack that encrypts data with or without extorting moneyfrom an entity associated with the data being encrypted), an attempt tocorrupt the data stored by the storage system (e.g., a malware attack),an attempt to steal the data coupled with one or more operationsconfigured to hide the data theft, any of the security threats describedherein, and/or any other nefarious interaction with the data stored bythe storage system.

Subsequent to performing operation 2602, system 400 may consider thedata stored by the storage system as under possible attack until system400 determines that the data stored by the storage system is no longerunder possible attack. System 400 may determine that the data stored bythe storage system is no longer under possible attack by determiningthat the data stored by the storage system was not in actuality beingtargeted by an attack (a false positive) or by determining that the datastored by the storage system was in actuality being targeted by anattack and that the attack has ended.

At operation 2604, system 400 may detect a modify request with respectto the storage system while the data stored by the storage system isunder possible attack. As used herein, a modify request may include anyrequest to perform an operation that results in a modification of datastored by the storage system. For example, a modify request may includea request to write data to the storage system, rename a data item (e.g.,a volume, an object, a file, a file directory containing one or morefiles, a database table, a key-value store, etc.), truncate a data item,zero out the contents of a data item, delete a data item, encrypt a dataitem, overwrite a data item in place, move data to a different locationwithin the storage system, etc.

At operation 2606, system 400 may determine that the modify request maybe related to the possible attack. System 400 may determine that themodify request may be related to the possible attack in any suitableway.

For example, system 400 may determine that a modify request may berelated to a possible attack by determining that a likelihood of themodify request being related to the possible attack is above apredetermined confidence level. The likelihood may be represented by aconfidence score or any other suitable metric. In some examples, theconfidence score may be compared against different confidence levels todetermine a degree of possible relatedness of the modify request to thepossible attack. In this manner, system 400 may determine which remedialaction(s) to take in response to determining that the modify request maybe related to the possible attack, as different remedial actions may beassociated with different confidence levels.

In some embodiments, to determine whether the modify request may berelated to the possible attack, system 400 may identify one or moreattributes associated with the modify request. The attributes of themodify request may include a source (e.g., a host or other entity) ofthe modify request, a timestamp of the modify request, one or moreattributes describing one or more aspects of a data item (e.g., a file,an object, a block or region of a volume, a database, etc.) associatedwith the modify request, and/or any other suitable attribute as mayserve a particular implementation.

The source of the modify request may identify a source from which themodify request was received. For example, the source of the modifyrequest may indicate a source identifier (ID) and/or a source address(e.g., Internet Protocol (IP) address, Media Access Control (MAC)address, etc.) of the source that initiated the modify request.

The timestamp of the modify request may indicate a date and time atwhich the modify request was received from a source (e.g., Oct. 3, 2020at 14:00:00 UTC).

An attribute describing one or more aspects of a data item associatedwith the modify request may include, but is not limited to, a name ofthe data item, a size of the data item, a format of the data item, acompressibility ratio of the data item, a bit pattern of the data item,etc. As used herein, the compressibility ratio of the data item mayindicate a percentage and/or a total amount of storage space being savedif the data item is compressed (e.g., 15%). The bit pattern of the dataitem may describe a pattern of a bit sequence representing the dataitem.

System 400 may identify an attribute associated with a data item in anysuitable manner. For example, system 400 may write a data itemassociated with a modify request to a temporary memory (e.g., a cachememory, a buffer memory, RAM, etc.), and analyze the data item in thetemporary memory to identify its attributes. Other attributes of themodify request are also possible and contemplated.

In some embodiments, system 400 may determine whether the modify requestis related to the possible attack based on one or more attributes of themodify request itself. This may be performed in any suitable manner.

For example, in some embodiments, system 400 may determine that anattribute associated with the modify request satisfies an attributethreshold, and thus determine that the modify request may be related tothe possible attack. As an example, system 400 may determine that thesize of a data item associated with a modify request to write the dataitem to the storage system satisfies a size threshold (e.g., more than apredetermined amount, such as 300 MB), determine that thecompressibility ratio of the data item satisfies a compressibility ratiothreshold (e.g., less than predetermined percentage, such as 5%), and/ordetermine that any other attribute associated with the write requestsatisfies an attribute threshold. If these one or more attributethresholds are satisfied, system 400 may determine that the data itemmay include encrypted data due to its size and/or compressibility ratio.Accordingly, system 400 may determine that the data item associated withthe modify request includes encrypted data, and thus determine that themodify request may be related to the possible attack.

Additionally or alternatively, system 400 may determine that the name ofthe data item associated with the modify request satisfies a namethreshold, such as a file or object name. For example, system 400 maydetermine that a total number of characters in the name of a data itemassociated with a modify request to write the data item to the storagesystem is higher than a threshold number of characters (e.g., more thana predetermined number of characters, such as 60 characters), determinethat non-letter characters (e.g., special symbols, numeric characters,etc.) in the name of the data item account for more than a thresholdpercentage (e.g., more than a predetermined percentage, such as 40%) ofthe name of the data item, and/or determine that any other aspect of thename of the data item satisfies a name threshold. If these one or morename thresholds are satisfied, system 400 may determine that the dataitem is anomalous and accordingly determine that the modify request maybe related to the possible attack.

Additionally or alternatively, system 400 may determine that the formatof the data item associated with the modify request satisfies a formatthreshold. For example, system 400 may determine that the format of thedata item is unidentifiable and/or not included in a predetermined setof formats, or does not match an expected format based on context (forexample, a file or object with a name ending in .JPG does not match theformat of a JPEG file), etc. Based on this, system 400 may determinethat the data item is anomalous and accordingly determine that themodify request may be related to the possible attack.

Additionally or alternatively, system 400 may determine that the bitpattern of the data item associated with the modify request satisfies abit pattern threshold. For example, system 400 may determine that atotal number of repetitive bit groups that are repeated in a bitsequence representing the data item is lower than a threshold number ofgroups (e.g., 15 groups), etc. Based on this, system 400 may determinethat the data item is anomalous and accordingly determine that themodify request may be related to the possible attack.

In some embodiments, to determine whether the modify request may berelated to the possible attack, system 400 may determine whether thesource of the modify request is associated with an abnormal pattern. Anabnormal pattern may indicate an unusual aspect of one or moreoperations (e.g., read operations, write operations, data itemreplacement operations, etc.) requested to be performed on the storagesystem by a source during a time period. Examples of detecting abnormalpatterns include, but are not limited to, detecting that a total amountof read and write traffic generated by a source during a predeterminedtime period exceeds a traffic amount threshold, detecting that writetraffic generated by a source is less compressible than read trafficgenerated by the source, and/or detecting other unusual aspects ofvarious operations with respect to the storage system that are describedin other security threat detection methods herein. In some embodiments,if system 400 determines that the source of the modify request isassociated with an abnormal pattern, system 400 may determine that themodify request may be related to the possible attack.

In some embodiments, to determine whether the modify request may berelated to the possible attack, system 400 may determine whether thesource of the modify request has been previously associated with one ormore attacks against the storage system. In particular, system 400 maymaintain a source list including one or more sources that were relatedto one or more previous attacks against the storage system in the past.These previous attacks may be identified using any of the methodsdescribed herein. In some embodiments, system 400 may determine whetherthe source of the modify request is included in the source list. If thesource of the modify request is included in the source list, system 400may determine that the source of the modify request had been associatedwith previous attack(s) against the storage system, and thus determinethat the modify request may be related to the possible attack.

At operation 2608, in response to determining that the modify requestmay be related to the possible attack, system 400 may perform a remedialaction with respect to the modify request.

In some embodiments, to perform a remedial action with respect to themodify request, system 400 may block the modify request and/or instructthe storage system to block the modify request. As a result, anoperation (e.g., a write operation) associated with the modify requestmay not be performed.

Additionally or alternatively, to perform a remedial action with respectto the modify request, system 400 may block modifying access (e.g.,write access) of the source to the storage system and/or instruct thestorage system to block the modifying access of the source. When themodifying access of the source is blocked, the storage system may denyor reject modify requests received from the source. As a result, thesource may not be able to perform any operation to modify any data ofthe storage system. In some embodiments, the storage system may blockthe modifying access of the source during a predetermined time period(e.g., for 24 hours). Alternatively, the storage system may block thewrite access of the source until system 400 determines that the datastored by the storage system is no longer under possible attack.

In some examples, although system 400 may perform a remedial action withrespect to a modify request that has been determined to be related tothe possible attack, system 400 may still allow other modify requests tobe performed with respect to the storage system. For example, system 400may allow modify requests determined to not be related to the possibleattack to be performed, even when the data stored by the storage systemis still under possible attack.

In some embodiments, after initially determining that the data stored bythe storage system is under attack, system 400 may subsequentlydetermine that the data stored by the storage system is no longer underpossible attack. In some embodiments, system 400 may do this bymonitoring one or more aspects of operations with respect to the storagesystem that caused system 400 to determine that the data stored by thestorage system is under possible attack. System 400 may determinewhether the one or more aspects of these operations satisfy one or morecorresponding thresholds. For example, system 400 may determine that atotal amount of read traffic and write traffic processed by the storagesystem during a predetermined time period satisfies a first trafficamount threshold (e.g., higher than 70 MB/s) but does not satisfy asecond traffic amount threshold (e.g., higher than 100 MB/s). In anotherexample, system 400 may determine that a difference between an averagecompressibility ratio of read traffic and write traffic processed by thestorage system satisfies a first compressibility difference threshold(e.g., higher than 20%) but does not satisfy a second compressibilitydifference threshold (e.g., higher than 35%). It should be understoodthat system 400 may monitor other aspects of other operations such asthose described in the security threat detection methods describedherein.

In some embodiments, if the one or more aspects of the operations thatcaused system 400 to determine that the storage system is under possibleattack do not satisfy the corresponding thresholds (e.g., the secondtraffic amount threshold and/or the second compressibility differencethreshold in the above examples), system 400 may determine that thepossible attack does not reach a level of an actual attack, and thusdetermine that the possible attack is a false positive. Therefore,system 400 may update a current state of the storage system to be anormal state, and thus determine that the data stored by the storagesystem was not actually under attack.

On the other hand, if the one or more aspects of the operations thatcaused system 400 to determine that the data stored by the storagesystem is under possible attack satisfy the corresponding thresholds(e.g., the second traffic amount threshold, the second compressibilitydifference threshold in the above examples), system 400 may determinethat the possible attack reaches a highlevel of confidence in an attackagainst the data stored by the storage system being under way. In thiscase, system 400 may monitor a number of requests from one or moresources requesting these operations with respect to the storage system.If the storage system does not receive any request requesting theseoperations during at least a predetermined time period (e.g., 3 hours),system 400 may determine that the actual attack ended or was terminated,and thus may determine that the data stored by the storage system is nolonger under possible attack.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the storage systemis no longer under possible attack, system 400 may perform any suitableaction. For example, personnel associated with the storage system may benotified so that the personnel may decide whether to unblock modifyingaccess for the source of the modify request. Alternatively, system 400may automatically unblock the modifying access of the source and/orinstruct the storage system to unblock the modifying access of thesource. Additionally or alternatively, system 400 may perform a postattack analysis of the data stored by the storage system and/or one ormore attributes of the possible attack.

In some embodiments, to perform a remedial action with respect to themodify request, system 400 may instruct the storage system to redirectthe modify request to a separate storage structure that is separate fromone or more active storages structures of the storage system. The activestorage structures of the storage system may be storage structures(e.g., volumes, drives, file directories, etc.) in the storage systemthat are accessible to sources, and thus the sources may perform variousoperations (e.g., read operations, write operations, delete operations,etc.) and/or request the operations to be performed in these storagestructures of the storage system. In some embodiments, the separatestorage structure (e.g., a sandbox environment) may be separated orisolated from the active storage structures of the storage system, andthus operations performed in the separate storage structure may notimpact the active storage structures of the storage system. The separatestorage structure may be within the storage system or may be withinanother storage system distinct from the storage system, and may includea snapshot or other replica of the data that is in the active storagestructure.

In some embodiments, when the storage system redirects a modify requestrepresentative of a request to write data to the storage system to theseparate storage structure, the storage system may write the dataassociated with the modify request to the separate storage structureinstead of to an active storage structure (e.g., a storage structureidentified by the source of the modify request as a destination for thedata). Thus, when data stored by the storage system is under possibleattack, the modify request can only modify the separate storagestructure that is isolated in the storage system and cannot impact theactive storage structures of the storage system.

In some embodiments, when data stored by the storage system is underpossible attack, the storage system may redirect not only modifyrequests related to the possible attack but also redirect other types ofrequests (e.g., reads, retrievals, and/or types of queries) to theseparate storage structure. In this manner, a source of the possibleattack may perceive that it is accomplishing its attack goals, eventhough its modifications and queries associated with the modificationsare safely directed to a sandbox environment.

If, after redirecting modify requests from a source to a separatestorage structure, system 400 determines that the data stored by thestorage system is no longer under possible attack, system 400 mayperform one or more suitable operations. For example, system 400 maynotify personnel associated with the storage system so that thepersonnel can review the data in the separate storage structure and/ordifferences in the data in the separate storage structure with the datain the active structure. Based on this review, the personnel may mergesome or all of the data in the separate storage structure back into theactive storage structure and/or otherwise process the data.

FIG. 27 shows an exemplary data restoration method 2700 that may beperformed by system 400 and/or any implementation thereof. Method 2700may be used alone or in combination with any of the other remedialaction methods described herein.

At operation 2702, system 400 determines that a storage system has beentargeted by a security threat. As part of this, system 400 may identifydata on the storage that has been corrupted by the security threat.

At operation 2704, system 400 restores (e.g., by directing the storagesystem to restore), based on one or more recovery datasets generated bythe storage system, data stored by the storage system to an uncorruptedstate.

The one or more recovery datasets used to restore the data to theuncorrupted state at operation 2704 may include one or more recoverydatasets generated prior to system 400 determining that the storagesystem is possibly being targeted by the security threat (e.g., arecovery dataset generated in accordance with continuous dataprotection-based remedial action method 2500 and/or a provisionalransomware recovery structure). Additionally or alternatively, the oneor more recovery datasets used to restore the data to the uncorruptedstate at operation 2704 may include one or more recovery datasetsgenerated after system 400 determines that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by the security threat (e.g., a recovery datasetgenerated in accordance with recovery dataset-based remedial actionmethod 2400).

In some examples, system 400 may further perform the data restorationbased on a version of the data that resides on a system other than thestorage system. This other system may include a replicating storagesystem, a host computing device, and/or any other suitable system as mayserve a particular implementation. For example, host data residing on ahost computing device may be used in combination with one or more of therecovery datasets described herein to restore data residing on thestorage system to an uncorrupted state.

In some examples, system 400 may select a recovery dataset for use inrestoring data to the storage system by first determining acorruption-free recovery point for the storage system. Thiscorruption-free recovery point corresponds to a point in time thatprecedes any data corruption caused by the security threat. System 400may then select a recovery dataset that corresponds to thecorruption-free recovery point for use in a data restoration process.

System 400 may determine a corruption-free recovery point for a storagesystem in any suitable manner. For example, FIG. 28 shows an exemplarydata restoration method 2800 that may be performed by system 400 and/orany implementation thereof. Method 2800 may be used alone or incombination with any of the other remedial action methods describedherein.

At operation 2802, system 400 detects a potential data corruption in astorage system. The potential data corruption may be caused by any ofthe security threats described herein. System 400 may detect thepotential data corruption based on one or more metrics maintained orgenerated by the storage system, an analysis of the data stored by thestorage system, and one or more attributes of a security threat thatcauses the potential data corruption.

At operation 2804, system 400 analyzes, in response to detecting thepotential data corruption, one or more metrics of the storage system.These metrics may be any of the metrics described herein.

At operation 2806, system 400 determines, based on the analyzing of theone or more metrics of the storage system, a corruption-free recoverypoint for potential use to recover from the potential data corruption.The corruption-free recovery point may be determined automatically bysystem 400 based on one or more metrics associated with the storagesystem and/or data maintained by the storage system. Additionally oralternatively, system 400 may determine the corruption-free recoverypoint based on user input provided by a user.

To illustrate, in some examples, system 400 may present (e.g., within agraphical user interface) one or more visualizations that may assist auser in identifying a corruption-free recovery point. For example,system 400 may visualize changes and/or types of changes either in acontinuous data protection store or in a time-ordered set of snapshots.For example, system 400 may provide a graph over time of various metricsthat may be useful for determining when an attack may have started overtime, where changes are related to differences between snapshots orbetween continuous data protection consistency points, presented in timeorder. These metrics may include reads, writes, compressibility ofreads, compressibility of writes, and hosts issuing requests, includingpossibly a visualization of unusual compressibility ratios forparticular datasets and from particular hosts.

If file, object, or database information is available for a set ofchanges (such as but not exclusively because the storage system isitself a file, database, or object server, or because a storage systemhosting a block volume used by a client host to store a file system,object store, or database has suitable format analyzers that candetermine file, object/bucket, or database changes from the stored filesystem or database), system 400 can further add metrics related tonumber of files or objects or database elements or blobs read, withtheir compressibility, including from various hosts, and number of filesor objects written, overwritten, or created and then written, againincluding compressibility. A visualizer may provide the ability to zoominto directories, buckets, files, tablespaces, or objects that showactivity of interest, and then provide graphs or other visualizations toshow activity against those over time, including the ability tosegregate by hosts or networks from which requests were received.

By being able to hone in on a particular update stream which seems to bethe source of deliberate corruption or encryption, these visualizationscan be used by a user to trace back in time to when that activity mayhave started. Then, a continuous data protection consistency point orsnapshot from prior to that can be used as a corruption-free startingpoint for recovery from the attack. Further, system 400 can visualizeactivity from the hosts used for the attack to isolate which parts ofthe storage system may have been attacked and corrupted or encrypted,which should suggest that other stored data was not affected and canlikely be considered safe.

FIG. 29 shows an exemplary replacement storage system reconstructionmethod 2900 that may be performed by system 400 and/or anyimplementation thereof. Method 2900 may be used alone or in combinationwith any of the other remedial action methods described herein.

At operation 2902, system 400 maintains configuration data for a storagesystem. The configuration data may include data representative of one ormore host connections and identities, storage system target endpointaddresses, and/or other types of configuration information for a storagesystem.

At operation 2904, system 400 determines that the storage system iscorrupted due to a security threat. This determination may be performedin any suitable manner.

At operation 2906, system 400 uses the configuration data to reconstructa replacement storage system for the storage system. The replacementstorage system may be separate from the storage system and/or within thesame storage system as may serve a particular implementation.

FIG. 30 shows an exemplary notification-based remedial action method3000 that may be performed by system 400 and/or any implementationthereof. Method 3000 may be used alone or in combination with any of theother remedial action methods described herein.

At operation 3002, system 400 determines that a storage system ispossibly being targeted by a security threat. This may be performed inany of the ways described herein.

At operation 3004, system 400 provides a notification in response to thedetermination that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat. The notification may be in any suitable format. Forexample, the notification may include a message (e.g., a text messageand/or an email), a notification within a user interface used by a user(e.g., an administrator) to manage the storage system, a phone call,and/or any other suitable type of notification as may serve a particularimplementation.

FIG. 31 shows an exemplary multi-level remedial action method 3100 thatmay be performed by system 400 and/or any implementation thereof. Method3100 may be used alone or in combination with any of the other remedialaction methods described herein.

At operation 3102, system 400 performs a first security threat detectionprocess with respect to a storage system. The first security threatdetection process may include any of the security threat detectionprocesses described herein.

At decision 3104, system 400 determines, based on the first securitythreat detection process, whether the storage system is a possibletarget of a security threat. If system 400 determines that the storagesystem is not a possible target of security threat based on the firstsecurity threat detection process (“No” at decision 3104), system 400continues to perform the first security threat detection process atoperation 3102.

However, if system 400 determines, based on the first security threatdetection process, that the storage system is a possible target of asecurity threat (“Yes” at decision 3104), system 400 may perform a firstremedial action (operation 3106). The first remedial action may includeany of the remedial actions described herein.

System 400 may also perform a second security threat detection processwith respect to the storage system (operation 3108). The second securitythreat detection process may be configured to provide higher confidencethreat detection than the first security threat detection process.Operations 3106 and 3108 may be performed concurrently or sequentiallyas may serve a particular implementation.

Based on the results of the second security threat detection process,system 400 may either confirm that the storage system is possibly beingtargeted by the security threat (“Yes” at decision 3110) or determinethat the storage system is not being targeted by the security threat(“No” at decision 3110). if system 400 determines that the storagesystem is not being targeted by the security threat (“No” at decision3110), system 400 may revert back to performing the first securitythreat detection process (which may require less resources to performthen the second security threat detection process). However, if system400 confirms that the storage system is possibly being targeted by thesecurity threat (“Yes” at decision 3110), system 400 may perform asecond remedial action at operation 3112. The second remedial action mayinclude any of the remedial actions described herein.

In some examples, the second remedial action is different than the firstremedial action. For example, the first remedial action may includeproviding a notification to an administrator of the storage system thatthe storage system is possibly being targeted by a security threat. Ifthe second security threat detection process confirms this, system 400may perform a more comprehensive remedial action (the second remedialaction), such as creating and/or locking down one or more recoverydatasets that may be used to restore corrupted data to an uncorruptedstate (such as with the authorization models described herein forransomware protection snapshots).

Various ways in which the methods and systems of detecting a possiblesecurity threat against a storage system and taking one or more remedialactions in response to the security threat are now described.

In some examples, a cloud-based monitoring system implementation ofsystem 400 may provide integrity checks to a storage system or a hostthat may be used to certify that the storage system or host is runningnormally and has not been compromised. This may be performed in anysuitable manner.

Additionally or alternatively, system 400 may leverage write anddeletion protected storage mechanisms to ensure availability of somenumber of ransomware/corruption protection snapshots, copies, orbackups. These are also useful to support legal holds or other relatedoperational purposes.

Additionally or alternatively, system 400 may provide minimumauthorization requirements for policy changes (and possibly limits tohow already locked down data can be affected by an authorized change inpolicy) that can be applied to the establishment or configuration of anypolicies, models, and/or processes described herein. Minimumauthorization may require, for example, various combinations ofauthorization by authenticated operators, administrators, managers, astorage system's vendor, a storage system's selling partner, an AIentity that evaluates requests, etc. A policy may also stipulate a setof combinations that are allowed to change the policy. Allowedcombinations may require, for example, at least a minimum number ofmanagers as well as either multiple entities within the storage systemvendor or multiple entities within a storage system's selling partner,as well as certification by at least two of several AI entitiesevaluating the change. Additionally or alternatively, an additional setof managers (and one or more CxO level authenticated users) may overrideone or more authorizing entities (e.g., a storage system seller or an AIengine) that would need to authorize a change with fewer managers orwithout CxCO level authorization from an authenticated CxO level user.

In some examples, duration times for recovery datasets or othertime-related models described herein may not generally be based onclocks which are subject to external modification, such as time of dayclocks. For example, time interval (or time since power-on) clocks canbe used (which are often built into CPUs or other hardware) by system400, with interval information being persisted periodically so a rebootor failover within a storage system can leverage prior known intervalsto ensure that a minimum absolute time has passed since some time orevent associated with a protection snapshot or other aspect of aparticular model described herein. This may ensure that an externalmanipulation of time (such as by hijacking an NTP server on a network)cannot be used to speed up automatic deletion activities. Moreover, ifsystem 400 identifies unusual discrepancies between interval-based timemeasurement and time-of-day clock times, system 400 may flag this as apotential indicator that the storage system is being targeted by asecurity threat.

In some examples, system 400 may facilitate replication of data (e.g.,rule set data) between administrative authorities. This may provide anadditional level of protection against inadvertent or maliciousmodification of such data.

In some examples, system 400 may direct a first storage system to storereplication data in a second storage system with a separateimplementation such as through the first storage system storingreplicated data as files or objects in a second storage system, orotherwise using the second storage system's regular store operations,rather than through a protocol link between identically implementedstorage systems. In this manner, bugs which may be used to attack one ofthe storage systems may be ineffective at attacking the other storagesystem.

In some examples, the protection methods and systems described hereinmay be layered in various ways to increase the robustness of the overallsystem in ensuring that uncorrupted data is available somewhere. Forexample, system 400 may provide for storing data into a separatelyimplemented storage system under a separate administrative domain whichitself keeps a set of snapshots or includes continuous data protectionand which is monitored for corruption by a monitoring service. In thisscenario, the primary storage system also includes snapshots orcontinuous data protection (or both) and is also monitored by themonitoring service.

Some cases of potential corruption or ransomware or other attacks maynot be detected by automated software but may be noticed or anticipatedby humans. For example, a manager or human resources person may haveconcerns about a disgruntled employee, or someone in informationtechnology may notice some behaviors that do not make sense. In suchcases, a user may provide a user input command for system 400 to directa storage system to create provisional or locked downransomware/corruption protection snapshots that may otherwise have beencreated by policy or by software. In a continuous data protection store,this may result in a set of backward looking locked-down snapshots andrecover points, as well. This may also result in a temporary change,with lesser authorization requirements, to increase the rate of creatingprotection snapshots or to increase the time limits in policies beforethey can be deleted.

In addition to support for human operators, an API may also be providedby system 400 for creation of ransomware/corruption protection snapshotsor for locking down recent snapshots or for managing the creation ofprovisional protection snapshots (or any other type of provisionalransomware recovery structure) and their conversion to fully protectedsnapshots. Then, for example, additional security software such asnetwork or server traffic monitors, or software interacting withsoftware threat analyzer services, may also trigger creation andmanagement of combinations of creation of ransomware/corruptionprotection snapshots, provisional protection snapshots, and conversionsof provisional protection snapshots into full protection snapshots. Suchan API may also trigger increases in time limits before protectionsnapshots can be deleted.

In some examples, a storage system may require certification from acertain number of monitoring services or monitoring service endpoints(such as at least two, or a majority of several such services orendpoints) for the storage system to delete discretionary ransomwareprotection snapshots and checkpoints or to alter their policy to reducethe period of time they will be retained or to alter the period of timeor the amount of activity needed to determine that the provisionaldetection does or does not rise to the level that the discretionarysnapshots will be automatically released or will automatically beconverted into full ransomware protection snapshots.

In the preceding description, various exemplary embodiments have beendescribed with reference to the accompanying drawings. It will, however,be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereto,and additional embodiments may be implemented, without departing fromthe scope of the invention as set forth in the claims that follow. Forexample, certain features of one embodiment described herein may becombined with or substituted for features of another embodimentdescribed herein. The description and drawings are accordingly to beregarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: determining, by a dataprotection system, that a total amount of read traffic and write trafficprocessed by a storage system during a time period exceeds a threshold,the read traffic representing data read from the storage system duringthe time period and the write traffic representing data written to thestorage system during the time period; determining, by the dataprotection system, a first compressibility metric associated with thewrite traffic, the first compressibility metric indicating an amount ofstorage space saved if the write traffic is compressed; determining, bythe data protection system, a second compressibility metric associatedwith the read traffic, the second compressibility metric indicating anamount of storage space saved if the read traffic is compressed;determining, by the data protection system based on a comparison of thefirst compressibility metric with the second compressibility metric,that the write traffic is less compressible than the read traffic;determining, by the data protection system based on the total amount ofread traffic and write traffic exceeding the threshold and on the writetraffic being less compressible than the read traffic, that the storagesystem is possibly being targeted by a security threat; determining, bythe data protection system based on the total amount of read traffic andwrite traffic exceeding the threshold and on the write traffic beingless compressible than the read traffic, that data stored by the storagesystem is under a possible attack; detecting, by the data protectionsystem, a modify request with respect to the storage system while thedata stored by the storage system is under the possible attack;determining, by the data protection system, that the modify request maybe related to the possible attack; and performing, by the dataprotection system in response to determining that the modify request maybe related to the possible attack, a remedial action with respect to themodify request.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining thatthe modify request may be related to the possible attack includes:identifying one or more attributes associated with the modify request;and determining that the modify request may be related to the possibleattack based on the one or more attributes.
 3. The method of claim 2,wherein the one or more attributes associated with the modify requestincludes one or more of a name of a data item associated with the modifyrequest, a size of the data item, a format of the data item, acompressibility ratio of the data item, a bit pattern of the data item,or a source of the modify request.
 4. The method of claim 2, wherein thedetermining that the modify request may be related to the possibleattack based on the one or more attributes includes: determining that anattribute associated with the modify request satisfies an attributethreshold.
 5. The method of claim 2, wherein the determining that themodify request may be related to the possible attack based on the one ormore attributes includes one or more of: determining that a source ofthe modify request is associated with an abnormal pattern; ordetermining that the source of the modify request has been previouslyassociated with one or more security threats against the storage system.6. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing the remedial actionwith respect to the modify request includes one or more of: blocking themodify request; or instructing the storage system to block the modifyrequest.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing the remedialaction with respect to the modify request includes: identifying a sourceof the modify request; and instructing the storage system to blockrequests by the source to the storage system.
 8. The method of claim 1,further comprising: determining, by the data protection system, that thedata stored by the storage system is no longer under the possibleattack; and performing, by the data protection system, an action inresponse to the determining that the data stored by the storage systemis no longer under the possible attack.
 9. The method of claim 1,wherein the performing the remedial action with respect to the modifyrequest includes: causing the modify request to be redirected to aseparate storage structure.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein theperforming the remedial action with respect to the modify requestfurther includes: identifying a source of the modify request; andinstructing the storage system to redirect read requests from the sourceto the separate storage structure.
 11. The method of claim 9, furthercomprising: determining, by the data protection system, that the datastored by the storage system is no longer under the possible attack; andperforming, by the data protection system in response to determiningthat the data stored by the storage system is no longer under thepossible attack, an action with respect to data stored in the separatestorage structure.
 12. A system comprising: a memory storinginstructions; and a processor communicatively coupled to the memory andconfigured to execute the instructions to: determine that a total amountof read traffic and write traffic processed by a storage system during atime period exceeds a threshold, the read traffic representing data readfrom the storage system during the time period and the write trafficrepresenting data written to the storage system during the time period;determine a first compressibility metric associated with the writetraffic, the first compressibility metric indicating an amount ofstorage space saved if the write traffic is compressed; determine asecond compressibility metric associated with the read traffic, thesecond compressibility metric indicating an amount of storage spacesaved if the read traffic is compressed; determine, based on acomparison of the first compressibility metric with the secondcompressibility metric, that the write traffic is less compressible thanthe read traffic; determine, based on the total amount of read trafficand write traffic exceeding the threshold and on the write traffic beingless compressible than the read traffic, that the storage system ispossibly being targeted by a security threat; determine, based on thetotal amount of read traffic and write traffic exceeding the thresholdand on the write traffic being less compressible than the read traffic,that data stored by the storage system is under a possible attack;detect a modify request with respect to the storage system while thedata stored by the storage system is under the possible attack;determine that the modify request may be related to the possible attack;and perform, in response to determining that the modify request may berelated to the possible attack, a remedial action with respect to themodify request.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein the determining thatthe modify request may be related to the possible attack includes:identifying one or more attributes associated with the modify request;and determining that the modify request may be related to the possibleattack based on the one or more attributes.
 14. The system of claim 13,wherein the one or more attributes associated with the modify requestincludes one or more of a name of a data item associated with the modifyrequest, a size of the data item, a format of the data item, acompressibility ratio of the data item, a bit pattern of the data item,or a source of the modify request.
 15. The system of claim 13, whereinthe determining that the modify request may be related to the possibleattack based on the one or more attributes includes: determining that anattribute associated with the modify request satisfies an attributethreshold.
 16. The system of claim 12, wherein the performing theremedial action with respect to the modify request includes one or moreof: blocking the modify request; or instructing the storage system toblock the modify request.
 17. The system of claim 12, wherein theperforming the remedial action with respect to the modify requestincludes: identifying a source of the modify request; and instructingthe storage system to block modifying access by the source to thestorage system.
 18. The system of claim 12, wherein the processor isfurther configured to execute the instructions to: determine that thedata stored by the storage system is no longer under the possibleattack; and perform an action in response to the determining that thedata stored by the storage system is no longer under the possibleattack.
 19. The system of claim 12, wherein the performing the remedialaction with respect to the modify request includes: causing the modifyrequest to be redirected to a separate storage structure; determiningthat the data stored by the storage system is no longer under thepossible attack; and performing, in response to determining that thedata stored by the storage system is no longer under the possibleattack, an action with respect to data stored in the separate storagestructure.
 20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storinginstructions that, when executed, direct a processor of a computingdevice to: determine that a total amount of read traffic and writetraffic processed by a storage system during a time period exceeds athreshold, the read traffic representing data read from the storagesystem during the time period and the write traffic representing datawritten to the storage system during the time period; determine a firstcompressibility metric associated with the write traffic, the firstcompressibility metric indicating an amount of storage space saved ifthe write traffic is compressed; determine a second compressibilitymetric associated with the read traffic, the second compressibilitymetric indicating an amount of storage space saved if the read trafficis compressed; determine, based on a comparison of the firstcompressibility metric with the second compressibility metric, that thewrite traffic is less compressible than the read traffic; determine,based on the total amount of read traffic and write traffic exceedingthe threshold and on the write traffic being less compressible than theread traffic, that the storage system is possibly being targeted by asecurity threat; determine, based on the total amount of read trafficand write traffic exceeding the threshold and on the write traffic beingless compressible than the read traffic, that data stored by the storagesystem is under a possible attack; detect a modify request with respectto the storage system while the data stored by the storage system isunder the possible attack; determine that the modify request may berelated to the possible attack; and perform, in response to determiningthat the modify request may be related to the possible attack, aremedial action with respect to the modify request.